Soft Drinks Now Main Source of Calories

Soft drinks and other sugar-added beverages have overtaken white bread and are now the main source of calories in the average American’s diet. This according to ongoing research being done by Odilia Bermudez, Ph.D., of Tufts University to confirm the relationship between obesity and certain foods. Bermudez collected the data from a large sample of respondents to the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Two-thirds of the representative sample reported consuming enough sweet drinks to provide them with more daily calories than any other food source. [via Experimental Biology 2005]

The average 12oz can of soda has equivalent of 11 teaspoons of sugar and 150 calories, and is about the same as 1/2 cup of rich ice cream. So one of those super size, 48oz+ sodas is the same as scarfing down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (except that the soda is pure sweetener and doesn’t have any balancing fat/protein). And you almost never feel “full” drinking sodas so it’s very hard to stop.

If you have cravings for sodas, I encourage you to try just a few simple things:

1) Have water more easily available than sodas. Have a case of water bottles in the car (and buy water you like; there is a difference. I like Aquafina and Deer Park Spring Water best; can’t stand Sam’s Club). At home you can store the water bottles in front of the sodas in the refrigerator.

2) If you are going to drink sodas, drink at least one of them a day mindfully—doing nothing else while slowly drinking the entire soda (see the article Mindful Eating for ideas). Listen to your body as you do. Notice if the taste changes while you drink. Is there a stopping point? Even when a soda feels right to me, usually the stopping point is 1/4 to 1/3 of a can. But mindlessly, I could suck down a half dozen!

3) Drink at least 1/2 cup of water first thing in the morning to break your thirst. Hot water is wonderful for this, since you sip it more slowly, and hot water gets the energy moving in the stomach, lungs, heart, and throat.

4) Before you reach for a soda, take a deep breath, go within, and just see what your intuition says would be most wonderful for you right at that moment. When I was coming off a Coca-cola addiction 14 years ago, this is what I did. What I noticed was that sometimes the answer was, yes, a Coke is what I needed. But I also started sensing that water, or orange juice, or a protein shake, or other fluids would be better. When I did follow my inner guidance, I found that I enjoyed it more.

Of course, EFT is very helpful in changing habits and patterns. If you would like help applying EFT to a specific craving, let me know.