Soft drink is the worst possible thing to be drinking

[ultrabiome]

my wife had me go to the doctor to get a physical (i had just turned 30) and she hoped i was diabetic or pre-diabetic so i would cut out the sugar and soda (no artificial sweeteners for me!), but no! i've cut back considerably in the past few years, but i still drink soda (i am right now!).

 

[Angelous Wang]

And yes, I mean even over alcohol.

Every so often on my facebook feed a post pops up saying how bad soft drink is which I conveniently ignore.

It wasn't until recently that I saw for myself how bad drinking even one can of coke a day is for you.

I've never been much of a soft drink fan, of course whenever I got Maccas or some other fast food I'd get the post mix coke and drink that.

But the supermarket near my house went on sale and they had 30 packs of Coke for $17 so I thought looks like an awesome deal I'll buy some.

Now almost a month later I am fatter than I have ever been and the only change in my lifestyle has been having one or 2 cans of coke a day.

For reference, I am fairly fit, Ive been going to the gym for a year and a half now and in that time have shifted from being a 63kg skinny nerd to almost 100kgs (bigger nerd) and I take protein and pre-workouts and all the supplements to do it.

After my coke binge though, I have large, noticable rolls of fat on my stomach that I can grab a whole handful of and my chin has gotten a lot fatter.

So I feel like I should spread the word to all regular soft drink drinkers out there, my brief exposure to it short term has done me the world of harm, so I can't imagine what its doing to anyone who drinks it all the time.

From today I am saying no more soft drink, I'm cutting it from my system completely (and I guess I have to start running now too... I HATE running).

Does anyone else have any revelations with food that they have come across that would be worth sharing?

For those of you who have trouble with reading: Gained 30kgs from a year of gym, put on some flab from coke with no specific kg gain mentioned!

It's not the soda on it's own that made you fat it's in combination with something else.

For example people who eat both meat and vegetables gain more weight than people who only eat meat or only eat vegetables.

This is because vegetables contain very little fat themselves but contain chemicals that make you retain more fat from anything else you eat so when eaten in combination with a high fat substance like meat you retain more from the meat than normal.

On the other hand eople on pure "green" diets or "even "no green" diets gain less weight because they ether only get the vegetables fat amount or have more of the meats fat pass straight through them.

Myself I have been drinking coke as my primary drink since forever and am pretty much on a "no greens" diet. I'm 7 stone and have almost always been since 14-16.

Obviously soda is still bad for your teeth,

Only if you are an idiot and keep the coke in your mouth for a long period of time, if you drink it like a normal person (aka almost straight down your throat) then you don't damage your teeth at all.

 

[Bas Smeets]

I dropped coke from my drinking habits and switched to water only. This let me lose 10 kg in a few months. Kilograms that haven't returned yet (3 years down the line). I'm still badly overweight as I haven't changed my diet and training habits otherwise, but cutting off 10 kg with just dropping all high calorie drinks was surprisingly effective. To be fair, I drank about 2 litres of coke a day.

I've been told liquid energy intake doesn't give you as much of a "done eating"-feel as equal energy solids do.

From an energy viewpoint orange juice is just as bad as coke.

 

[Luca72]

And yes, I mean even over alcohol.

Every so often on my facebook feed a post pops up saying how bad soft drink is which I conveniently ignore.

It wasn't until recently that I saw for myself how bad drinking even one can of coke a day is for you.

I've never been much of a soft drink fan, of course whenever I got Maccas or some other fast food I'd get the post mix coke and drink that.

But the supermarket near my house went on sale and they had 30 packs of Coke for $17 so I thought looks like an awesome deal I'll buy some.

Now almost a month later I am fatter than I have ever been and the only change in my lifestyle has been having one or 2 cans of coke a day.

For reference, I am fairly fit, Ive been going to the gym for a year and a half now and in that time have shifted from being a 63kg skinny nerd to almost 100kgs (bigger nerd) and I take protein and pre-workouts and all the supplements to do it.

After my coke binge though, I have large, noticable rolls of fat on my stomach that I can grab a whole handful of and my chin has gotten a lot fatter.

So I feel like I should spread the word to all regular soft drink drinkers out there, my brief exposure to it short term has done me the world of harm, so I can't imagine what its doing to anyone who drinks it all the time.

From today I am saying no more soft drink, I'm cutting it from my system completely (and I guess I have to start running now too... I HATE running).

Does anyone else have any revelations with food that they have come across that would be worth sharing?

For those of you who have trouble with reading: Gained 30kgs from a year of gym, put on some flab from coke with no specific kg gain mentioned!

I have trouble believing you gained that much from just that amount of drinking. However, the chin rolls you're seeing make perfect sense. It shouldn't be that you're gaining a dramatic amount of weight by drinking soda, but you should be seeing noticeable increases in fat stores across your body.

Sugar gives your body the signal to store glucose as glycogen, which we recognize as body fat. Fat is an energy source that can be accessed pretty much indefinitely, whereas the body only keeps a small amount of glucose (what you break carbs down into) at any one time. So by taking in a ton of carbs you're basically telling your body that energy is in abundance and it should store as much as it can.

Taking in too much sugar messes with your bodies ability to use insulin too. This is why people can develop diabetic problems as they age if they don't fix their diet. Worse still, you need your insulin to be functioning correctly so your body knows when to pack on muscle after a workout! This means that taking in too much sugar will directly sap your workout gains.

Glad you noticed what was happening before it got worse! Now do some runnin' and get that body back soldier! (or better yet, use kettlebells!)

 

[shrekfan246]

Never seen anyone get fat just because they drank soda. Sure, I've heard people claim their weight is due to soda, but I find it to be a load of bull.

Depends on the moderation and person in question.

If you drank soda like I did throughout high school (2 liters a day, every day), then yes, it's very possible that being overweight is entirely thanks to soft drinks. I stopped drinking soda just under a year and a half ago, began limiting my calorie intake to 1500-2000 per day (didn't make any significant changes to the actual foods I've been eating other than completely cutting out sodas and most juices, though), and just began exercising about four months ago, and since I stopped drinking soda I've dropped at least fifty pounds, if not more. I weigh less now than I even did in high school (though I'm still overweight by about thirty pounds for my height, if the home scale is to be believed).

 

[Callate]

Soda is basically liquid candy. No one should be drinking it every day. Even the diet versions have been implicated in weight gain in limited studies.

What's more insidious is how widely available it is- sometimes to the exclusion of anything healthier. I've taken to drinking unsweetened iced tea when it's an option (hey, gotta get my caffeine), but unfortunately that's not available everywhere.

I've also noted, personally, that high fructose corn syrup seems to have detrimental effects on me that ordinary sugar does not. I recognize that some will claim they're virtually identical- that hasn't been my experience. Why that is- some trace chemical used in separating the sugars from the rest of the kernel, perhaps- I don't know; I'm just quite certain at this point that it is so, for me.

All that said, as long as it's treated like candy- that is, as an occasional treat rather than the beverage of choice- I don't think it's exactly doom in an aluminum can.

 

[Olas]

Don't Soft drinks aren't inherently bad for you, things only become unhealthy when you consume them in unreasonable proportions.

That being said, you must have a pretty terrible metabolism if drinking 2 cans of soda every day made you gain a ton of weight. I've gone periods without drinking much soda, and aside from caffeine withdrawal it's never dramatically affected me one way or another.

I'm not advocating soda as health food, but the worst possible thing to be drinking?

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Something to consider on this topic is the fact that soft drinks are quite different in the USA vs. the EU.

In the EU, fructose is heavily regulated to protect the sugar industry, so most soft drinks use cane/beet sugar. This is essentially pure sucrose that breaks down directly into glucose and is burned up as we exercise.

In the USA, they pump high fructose corn syrup into just about everything. Since it can be artificially created quite easily and the price isn't subject to government meddling, it is a really cheap way to sweeten stuff. It is also linked (scientifically) to rapid weight gain because it doesn't break down very well and ends up being absorbed into fat tissue.

TL;DR This is especially true if you live outside the EU.

 

[Kyogissun]

Man, I always love seeing these kinds of threads on forums. It's always awesome when someone thinks they're doing a public service with these kinds of things.

Soda isn't the best thing for you but your thread title and the majority of your posts REALLY are borderline fear mongering buddy.

Hide behind the 'I'm just trying to inform people!' defense all you want, but people have picked apart your commentary bit by bit and proven you wrong, ALONG with the fact that people are aware Soda isn't the healthiest thing ever to drink. But uh, that 'worse than alcohol' claim is really shallow and insensitive. Good to see that being fat is worse than having an alcohol dependency in your book.

Seriously though, there are other problems besides weight gain you can acquire from soda, so kudos acting like getting fat is the worse thing that can happen to you. Let's ignore caffeine withdraw headaches, the dental health damage it can do and the effects the sugar have on the body OUTSIDE of weight gain and just focus on how bad that weight gain is above ALL else.

Not to mention, you probably just have 'really' shitty metabolism as well.

 

[Voulan]

I couldn't imagine drinking fizzy once a day anyway. At the most I'll have a single can a week on the weekends, but lately it's stretched out to around two weeks. I have to pace drinking that stuff out, or I just feel sick.

That being said, I don't do exercise almost at all. I'm still a healthy weight for my age, but I do have stomach flab. Nothing that can't be hidden by sucking in, though.

 

[Leonardo Huizar]

I read in an article that tested Fructose [Fruit Sugar] on mice and it was proven that it increases the Male Mice's chances at mental disorders & Alzheimers. Males specifically because Female mice's estrogen counters the effects.

Now thats a test on creatures who have a somewhat healthy habit of eating fruit as opposed to human beings who religiously drink sodas & gator/kool/power*Ade for most of their lives.

Even worse for Pro athletes who have to down so much gatorade through their system while exerting themselves during whatever competition their doing. It might not be just the concussions trashing their mental state

*Yes, i know testing on animals is harsh but this is about soda and really shouldnt derail the topic

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Worse than alcohol... ?

Worse than a drink that causes millions of people to lose control and commit terrible acts and gives them internal organ problems on top of that?

 

[Yopaz]

Just because that's the way it was with you, doesn't mean that it's always the case. I have a friend who has gone to a nutritionist to determine his metabolism. Without any significant exercise, he burns 5000 calories a day to maintain weight.

On the other hand, I have a friend who thinks he has a high metabolism because he eats a massive amount with each meal, but I'm pretty sure at least 90% of it is because he only has one meal a day most days, and some days he doesn't eat at all.

It varies from person to person, every person has a different resting metabolism due to many many factors we don't fully understand, but some people do just have really high metabolisms.

This is pretty much what I said... I didn't say that no-one has high metabolism, I said that most who think so are forgetting something, such as your friend who eats once a day, that doesn't mean no-one has high metabolism. Did you even bother to read my post?

 

[sky14kemea]

I'd need some proof that cola made you put on that much weight in that short time... Especially if you're going to the gym regularly.

As for myself, I drink soft drinks everyday, and I've never gained weight. In fact, I need to gain weight, since i'm below my average BMI.

I know they're unhealthy, and not exactly a great thing to drink, but since I hate water on its own (it's more the lack of taste thing) I usually go with soft drinks as my alternative.

 

[Zakarath]

My eating habits at college were pretty much soda and plenty of breaded chicken tenders every day. started college at 115 pounds, four years later I'm 122. Don't think I ever reached 130. My metabolism don't care, it just takes "food" and converts it to energy, no questions asked.

 

[DugMachine]

I agree but it's not THAT bad. One or two cans a day (if you exercise like you say you do) as well as a somewhat healthy diet shouldn't effect you much. That said, I did quit sodas for a year and noticed dramatic weight loss. But I also began working out multiple times a week and overall eating healthier food. I still drink sodas now but usually only Coke Zero and the occasional regular Coke if I feel like cheating.

It would be ideal to just cut them all out together and just drink tea/water but the occasional coke won't hurt you. Now cigarettes, those I need to quit for obvious reasons. Coke is fine. All things in moderation

 

[Evil Smurf]

Gave up drinking alchohol. Feeling great! =D

How? Alcohol is delicious and fun! It makes bad things to away and makes new friends! I could never give up drinking, although I can't drink spirits anymore without feeling sick (I may have mixed Canadian club with cold and flu medication on my 21st)

Seriously, how did you stop? I may need help.

 

[Queen Michael]

I usually drink a soda every other day on average... But reading this makes me want to switch to milk...

 

[direkiller]

And yes, I mean even over alcohol.

Every so often on my facebook feed a post pops up saying how bad soft drink is which I conveniently ignore.

It wasn't until recently that I saw for myself how bad drinking even one can of coke a day is for you.

I've never been much of a soft drink fan, of course whenever I got Maccas or some other fast food I'd get the post mix coke and drink that.

But the supermarket near my house went on sale and they had 30 packs of Coke for $17 so I thought looks like an awesome deal I'll buy some.

Now almost a month later I am fatter than I have ever been and the only change in my lifestyle has been having one or 2 cans of coke a day.

For reference, I am fairly fit, Ive been going to the gym for a year and a half now and in that time have shifted from being a 63kg skinny nerd to almost 100kgs (bigger nerd) and I take protein and pre-workouts and all the supplements to do it.

After my coke binge though, I have large, noticable rolls of fat on my stomach that I can grab a whole handful of and my chin has gotten a lot fatter.

So I feel like I should spread the word to all regular soft drink drinkers out there, my brief exposure to it short term has done me the world of harm, so I can't imagine what its doing to anyone who drinks it all the time.

From today I am saying no more soft drink, I'm cutting it from my system completely (and I guess I have to start running now too... I HATE running).

Does anyone else have any revelations with food that they have come across that would be worth sharing?

For those of you who have trouble with reading: Gained 30kgs from a year of gym, put on some flab from coke with no specific kg gain mentioned!

It sound like you are retaining the water more then the sugar.

Quite literately your body can't process that much sugar into fat in one month, and if it could it would not weight as much as you describe, the energy equivalent of 60 cans of pop is about 1kg of fat(excluding the amount lost in the metabolizing process). Meanwhile the amount of liquid you put though your body was about 30kg.


Don't get me wrong, 350 extra empty Calories a day when your body is not use to them is a bad idea long term but most of the weight you gained would have happened if you drank that amount of any outer drink.

 

[legend of duty]

Coffee, Sweet Tea, and water is all I need. Plus alcohol of course.