How To Double Your Weight Loss

One of the largest and longest running weight loss studies shows that keeping a food diary can more than double your weight loss.

"The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost," said lead author and researcher Jack Hollis Ph.D. "Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories." American Journal of Preventive Medicine, August 2008.

My new favorite way to record food is MyNetDiary.com

You can enter your foods via internet or iPhone. With a food database that lists over 88,000 foods, it ensures you rarely need to enter food labels, and takes less time than any other calorie counting method. It also has a community, so you can connect to the people you want to (like me), to help support your success!

If you want to try it out, I will give a free month to the first 2 people who email me their request!

Committed to your health,
Maren

Why You Shouldn’t Drink Diet Sodas

If these articles don’t change your mind, I don’t know what will…

•  It may change your brain chemistry and metabolic limit and make you more prone to overeat and gain weight! Link to article.

• A 14-year study of 66,118 women found that:

• People who drank artificially sweetened soda were more likely to experience weight gain than those who drank regular soda.

• Those who drank diet soda had twice the risk of developing metabolic syndrome (related to diabetes) Link to article

   Over the course of nine years, diet soda drinkers gained almost triple the amount of abdominal fat over non-imbibers. Link to article.  

• Aspartame is classified as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”; safe for up to 9–14 cans of diet soda per day. That's not comforting to me! Link to more info.
• Extreme sweeteners trigger food addiction. Link to article.
  
•  The sweet taste elicits an insulin spike, which blocks your body’s ability to burn fat. Link to article.
•  Accumulating evidence suggests that frequent consumers of these sugar substitutes may also be at increased risk of excessive weight gain, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Link to article
• Excessive Diet Soda consumption can affect multiple organ systems, and associations have been made to mental health burden, delays in child neurodevelopment, cardiac remodeling, worsening retinopathy in diabetics, incidental end-stage renal disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma in men, rheumatoid arthritis in women, hip fractures, dental erosion, increases in breath alcohol concentration when used in alcoholic beverages, and accelerated cell aging. Link to article.
• Women who consumed 24 ounces or more of diet drinks a day had a 35 percent higher risk of heart disease, a 26 percent increased risk of stroke, and a 19 percent risk of dying early from any cause. Link to article. 
•  In two NutriNet-Santé studies, those who consumed around 80 mg of total artificial sweeteners a day—the amount in about two packets of sweetener or half a can of diet soda—had an increased risk of cancer (especially breast and obesity-related cancers) and cardiovascular disease than people who didn’t consume any. Aspartame and Ace-K were linked to the highest cancer risk, aspartame to a higher stroke risk, and sucralose and Ace-K to a higher heart disease risk.
•  The waist circumference gain of people who consumed diet soda daily was nearly four times greater than non-consumers over a 10-year period. Link to article.
  
•  Several theories that could very well explain why drinking diet soda causes weight gain. Read more here.
  
•  The world Health Organization says replacing free sugars with NSS does not help with weight control in the long term. Link to recommendation.
  
• Because the soda doesn't actually contain any calories, the craving remains unsatisfied. When the brain tastes something sweet, it makes a prediction that calories are coming. It waits for that dopamine signal from the stomach. But when no calories arrive - the sweetness is indigestible - that useful and predictive relationship is disrupted. It's as if the brain can no longer trust the tongue. Link to article.
  
• When we taste an artificial sweetener, the reward system becomes activated but not satiated. "Our hypothesis is that the artificial sweetener has less of a feedback mechanism to stop the craving, to get satisfied." Link to article
• Diet sodas erode your tooth enamel, and enamel erosion can leave you at greater risk for cavities and decay. Nonsugared drinks (diet and zero-calorie) as a whole were more erosive than sugared beverages.

Need I say more! Yes, more research needs to be done, but why would you risk all of the above side effects?

Stop drinking those diet sodas NOW!

What should you drink? Yes, water. But there’s no need to keep it boring. Add a lemon, lime or orange, or a splash of 100% real fruit juice to keep it palatable. Also, just give it a try for a couple of weeks. Your taste buds do change to the point you’ll actually crave plain water.

Committed to your health,
Maren

P. S. This article has a list of alternatives and better diet sodas.

 

P.P.S. Here is a spreadsheet with the ingredients of some diet sodas and artificial sweeteners.