Diet or Regular, Soda is Plain Bad

I’ve long since given up on drinking soda, or what we call soft drinks from our part of the world.

Not because I’ve found evidence that it’s unhealthy, no. It’s because no matter how refreshing it is when taken with a rich meal, soda on a regular basis adds on the pounds to my already, er, weight-challenged body.


So why do I gain weight just by drinking soda?

The sugars are the culprit, we know, but just how much sugar are we ingesting with a regular can of soda?

For starters, a 12 oz. can of regular Coke has 40.5 grams of sugar—which is equivalent to 10 teaspoons of sugar or about 20 sugar cubes. You could’ve had 10 cups of coffee with that amount of sugar—not to mention a frenetic energy that won’t quit ‘til bedtime.

(Interestingly, and just for nutty geeks like me, there are 96 teaspoons in a pound. If you drink a can of Coke (and other sodas) daily for a year you’ve just loaded yourself approximately 38 pounds of sugar. Major yaikks!)

Twenty sugar cubes daily—throughout the year—is a lot of zero-nutrient carbohydrates. I just recently learned that unused carbs are stored by our body as fats. And guess where these fats go first? If you answered the tummy and the thighs, then you know your weight loss facts!

For soda addicts, diet is the way to go to avoid the sugars, right?

You might want to reconsider that belief though.

Diet soda has been linked by the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to five times more weight gain for long-time drinkers compared to those who never touch the stuff.

Researchers are saying it’s because diet soda triggers the appetite but give nothing for you to satisfy your awakened appetite. Plus, artificial sweeteners have that pesky tendency to inhibit the part of your brain that says you’re already full (when eating). Ouch!

More recently, researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and at Columbia University Medical Center in New York have found that diet soda is related to a “higher risk of vascular events” or stroke.

Of course, the study also found some correlation between the findings, diet soda, smoking and age. Age may have a bigger role in the link between diet soda and stroke because the average age of the subjects of the study was 69.

So the, er, older you are and if you have a history of smoking to boot, the more second thoughts you should have in continuing with your soda habit.

This work-at-home girl, for one, is glad that she’s totally sworn off the soda—regular or diet. Water with lemon, cranberry juice, milk tea, or just plain water is my type of poison nowadays. :)