Drink Yourself to Death

There are those in the world that want to enslave us.

They are the makers of sweet-sugary-caffieney-creamy-caramel-mocha-frappa-fizzy-fuzzy-biggulpy-pulpy-poppy-hoppy-carbonated-teeth/intestine/stomach lining/esophagus rotting drinks that many, if not most of us consume every day.

They want your children. And they want your loyalty.

They will go to extremes to get you to argue over coke vs pepsi, bud vs miller, Starbucks over.... whatever it is that Starbucks competes with. I'm not  a coffee person. So shoot me.
You may think I am exaggerating. You would be wrong.

A quick check has the two biggies by name recognition (Pepsi and Coke) valued at a combined 250 BILLION dollars. A quarter of a trillion dollars. The soft drink industry has lobbied Washington DC to the tune of 50 Million dollars since 2000.

Why do I bring this up? Because I honestly believe the biggest, best step you can take to losing weight and better health is to look at what you drink. So many calories sneak into your diet in liquid form that it makes sense to make this your starting point. And for many people, this is the hardest thing to give up. If you regularly drink non-diet soda, or any type of gourmet caffeine drinks, it's a good idea to consider a change.

This is where  I started many years ago, on my first weight loss attempt. I was a regular 6 pack or more a day Pepsi drinker for years. Giving that up was not easy. At all. My personality changed. My wife suffered. My pets checked themselves in at the pound. But the mosquitoes thanked me. They could finally taste blood instead of the brown sludgy syrup that my bloodstream consisted of.

Some quick math shows the numbers: The average calorie count for a can of "Cola" is 131 calories. Now multiply that times 7, 917. If you drink one can of soda a day you add 917 calories per week to your diet.  A pound of weight  = 3500 calories.... so in roughly one month, you add one pound of weight to your body by drinking one soda a day. If you drink more than one a day do the math. It SUCKS!!!

Stop drinking soda!!! Or switch to something else. Water is best but find something you can live with and try it.

I've watched several close friends as they embarked on a weight loss plan. Many of them were big consumers of soda. They struggled to give it up, but those that did tended to lose big. From 5 to 10 pounds in a relatively short period of time. There is now evidence that even diet soda is bad!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20075358-10391704.html

Juice is hardly any better. Fruit juices tend to be packed with sugar. Read the labels! And read close, the little bastards like to fool you with serving size wizardry.

For me, it took time to find an alternative. I grew up on sweet tea so that's where I started. First the bottled kind, which was better than soda, then homemade, then eventually on to green tea. I have slowly dialed back the sugar I add to it as far as I can tolerate. About 2/3 of a cup for a gallon is what I use. The calorie difference between that and soda is big. There are 774 calories in a cup of sugar. A 16 oz bottle of my tea comes in about 35 calories compared to the 131 average for soda! And I have become semi-annoyingly famous amongst family and friends for carrying a little red cooler with two bottles of tea in it everywhere I go.

So if you're ready to make a change, maybe the single biggest best change you can make is to throw the soda away and give something else a try.

The next time someone ask you, "Coke or Pepsi?" say HOW 'BOUT NOOOOOOOOOOO!
I'll take water thank you!