11/07/2012
Tip #2
Ditch the Diet Pop
It’s pretty common for someone to go on a diet and then immediately make the switch to diet pop. And while diet pop is free from calories and fat, it isn’t the best thing you can do for your waistline or your health.
Diet pop is full of chemical sweeteners that have been shown to have some negative effects. For example, saccharine is a known carcinogen – which means it can cause cancer. And other sweeteners, such as aspartame and sucralose, can actually cause your blood sugar to spike.
While your body isn’t actually receiving sugar, these sweeteners trick it into thinking it is. This can make you feel hungrier – something you don’t want when you’re trying to take off a few extra pounds.
Drinking soda also decreases the amount of water you consume. This can also have negative effects on weight loss and dieting. If pop is your regular drink, you’ll want to look at ways to limit consumption.
Instead of drinking diet soda, there are many things you can do:
• Drink regular pop. If you have to have the flavor of pop it would be better to drink a real one and account for the calories in your diet plan.
• Drink carbonated water such as Perrier and Pellegrino. These have the slightest taste of citrus, but don’t have the calories or artificial ingredients.
• Making a mix of half juice and half club soda can give you a sweet soda flavor and the feeling of bubbles without the artificial ingredients.
• Make iced herbal tea. This can be a satisfying, flavorful drink that you can use to replace the need for pop with a meal.
For some people, ditching the pop habit can be tough. You may be addicted to the caffeine as well as the flavour. You may not want to quit cold turkey. It’s a good idea to cut back if you’re someone who drinks several pop daily.
Instead, limit pop to once each day. Look at it as a treat, rather than your main beverage. Eventually, you’ll find that you don’t have to have as much in order to be satisfied and you may even find that you can let it go completely.
Diet pop is not the best thing for a diet. It’s time to say goodbye to soda and hello to a new you. By drinking more water and less soda, you’ll find that weight loss is a much easier challenge. You’ll also save money – pop can be a bit pricey.
