Steve Collison » Weightloss

How to give up soda drinks

Steve — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:18:02 +0000

A while ago I wrote about giving up Mountain Dew, claiming this was something I hoped to achieve. I did achieve it, temporarily – and there lies the problem, temporary achievements are nothing short of failures. Calling a failure an achievement allows us to downplay a problem with ignorance.

The problem is, to give up something you really have to believe it is bad for you – you really have to be able to mentally weigh the pros and cons of giving it up.

The cons:

All that sugar and caffeine is affecting my health.

The pros:

Soda tastes really good and quenches my thirst.

Easy enough to weigh out, right? Maybe at first glance, but subconsciously – I really could care less that it’s “affecting my health” because the effects are not being quantified. I am much more interested in consuming the product than I am considering the toll it is having on my body that I am quite simply ignorant towards – or perhaps just uninformed.

Actually, uninformed is probably the better word. For now that I am informed, I am giving up soda with a fist full of will power. People are clearly uninformed, as I found out from this Yahoo! Answers page.

On this page, “peanut” asks: What happens to your health if you drink 1 can of coke each day?

The answers are astonishing:

let me guess nothing
because i do that
i drink can of coke every single day since grade 5
now i am in grade 7
Erm nothing.
If you only drink 1 can of coke a day and don’t eat or drink anything else you die.

If you drink 1 coke a day as part of a balanced diet then nothing happens.
Geez, what do you think is gonna happen?
nothing serious, your blood sugar will be higher for a bit. but we need caffeine.
=]

There were a few answers that tried to be more precise about the effects of soda drinks, but these answers clearly represent an uninformed or possibly ignorant population.

Onwards to what really happens, as defined at Blisstree:

In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.
20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)
40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.
45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.
>60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.
>60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.
>60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having theability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

Shocked much? The points that fill me with will power should be obvious:

“But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like even having theability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth”
Basically, no matter how good my diet is, drinking soda is going to give me diminished returns on my efforts.
“This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.”
I’ve read some places that sugar is actually more addictive than heroin.
“The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.”
I’ve discussed this previously, but the fact that soda prevents you from knowing when you’re tired means you can’t get a good night’s sleep.

Is this enough truth to give you the will power you need?

Giving up Mountain Dew and other caffeinated drinks

Steve — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:13:02 +0000

We have enough cans to grow a forest.

The time has come where I am old enough to look at what I eat & drink, and tell myself it’d be a good idea to cut down or eliminate it.

Right now, I’m working on giving up Mountain Dew. My wife and I consume more than 30 cans worth of Dew a week, which is probably enough caffeine to keep a horse awake for a month.

What does caffeine do to you?

Rots your teeth.
Creates an imbalance in your stomach and can cause stomach ulcars and acid reflux.
Blocks the receptors in your brain that tell you you’re tired – essentially making it harder for you to sleep.
Addicts you the same way heroin does!
Surprisingly, in a can of Mountain Dew, there are 170 calories.

There’s more I’m sure, but that’s enough to convince me that I should give up. I started my no-caffeine diet on Saturday. I’ve slipped up a couple times by taking drinking some of my wife’s Dew. The worst part so far has been the anti-caffeine headache that has been pulverising my brain and taking my sanity along with it. The headache has eased off today though.

I hope that, by reducing my intake of carbonated drinks in general and replacing them with water, my weight will decrease gradually over the next few months. Maybe, by my birthday (June 6 for those of you kind enough to buy me a car present) I’ll be at my ideal weight.

Fingers crossed.

This is my scope on life.

Steve — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:44:46 +0000

I’ve often thought about starting a personal blog – and I finally decided to bite the bullet. I’ve owned my name as a domain for years now, but I never bothered to use it. I used to keep my curriculum vitae uploaded here – but nobody ever visited; what a waste of a domain.

So, you’re here to read about me. If you’re not, you shouldn’t probably GET OFF MY DOMAIN NAME, AND STOP TRESPASSING!

Recently, I’ve become overly concerned about my weight. I don’t feel obese, but I am definitely overweight. Kelly (my wife don’t you know) is also overweight, and is more concerned about her weight than I am with mine.

Nonetheless, we decided to take reductive action. We bought a PlayStation 2 and Dance Dance Revolution! Yeah, that’s right, scoff at the idea all you want – but I burn in excess of 300 calories a day while dancing like a retard, something you could only ever dream of doing! (Needless to say I, more often than not, stop dancing when visitors arrive.)

The DDR game represents a saviour for us in more than one way. Besides helping us control our weight gain and loss, it also gives us something to do. My wife and I have found our way past those wonder years where all that matters is being together, now we actually need something to do together, something that we’re both interested in! (I knew she could only cope with Sci-Fi for so long.)

DDR has a workout mode, where you enter your weight and how many calories you want to lose, and as you play it calculates how many calories you have lost during each song. I lose calories at a quicker pace than my wife because I’m a big whale and she’s not, so she often suffers from spouts of jealousy when I burn three times as many calories as her. I also play it on difficult, because I think it makes me look cool. (To who? I’ll never know…)

Anyway, DDR has worked out to be a fun and effective way to control our weight and give our marriage more substance; as ridiculous as that may sound. What would be more ridiculous? Not trying.