One of the worst things you can do for your health is regularly consume soft drinks. When you understand what is in the average soft drink and what those ingredients can do, you may just want to stay as far away from them as you can!
The average soda has no nutritional value. Most contain only sugar, carbonated water, caramel coloring, flavoring, caffeine, and high fructose corn syrup. Dark colored soft drinks such as colas also contain phosphoric acid. Clear soft drinks (lemon-lime flavored) have citric acid.
Now, let’s look at some of those ingredients individually. The pH of phosphoric acid is very acidic, at 2.8. A substance of this pH can dissolve a nail in about four days. It can also clean the corrosion off a car battery. The only reason that the acid in soda doesn’t dissolve parts of your body after ingesting it is that your body makes a powerful base to neutralize it. Numerous studies have indicated that the sugar and acids in soda may cause tooth decay. In high concentrations, phosphoric acids block calcium absorption and flush calcium out of your bones, making them weak and prone to fracture. The phosphoric acid in soft drinks is also so strong that it reacts with the aluminum inside the cans, dissolving microscopic bits of aluminum right into the soda.
Many sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease have unusually high concentration of aluminum in their brain tissue, suggesting a link between aluminum toxicity and the disease. In some states, highway patrol officers keep cola in the trunks of their cars to clean blood off the highway after an accident. Cola drinks can also loosen rusted bolts nearly as well as silicone spray. In fact, the distributors of some cola drinks have been using it for over twenty years to clean the engines of their trucks. These trucks, by the way, must display hazardous material signs reserved for highly corrosive materials. According to some household cleaning websites, soda can even be sued as a toilet cleaner and grease remover.
An average can of soda has 35 mg of caffeine, and most energy drinks contain about 80 mg caffeine, along with other stimulants such as guarana and ginseng. Some energy drinks even contain up to 280 mg caffeine. This is triple the amount of caffeine found in a cup of coffee. These drinks boost heart rate, raise blood pressure, increase anxiety, dehydrate the body, and cause insomnia.
All soft drinks contain sugar, high fructose corn syrup, or artificial sweeteners. Most soft drinks contain around 13 teaspoons of sugar. Soda adds more sugar to a typical two-year-old’s diet than cookies, candy, and ice cream combined. High amounts of sugar entering the body quickly cause your pancreas to release high amounts of insulin, which turns the sugar into fat. To get rid of this fat, your body stops burning stored fat for energy and starts burning the new fat made from sugar. Since you don’t need that much energy, the new fat is stored in your fat cells, causing you to gain weight. In fact, the risk of childhood obesity increases 1.6 times with each additional daily serving of soda consumed. Over time, multiple daily insulin surges can cause insulin resistance and diabetes.
Diet sodas are not a safe option, either. Your body detects the sweet taste, and produces the same insulin response as in the non-diet drinks. Artificial sweeteners also contain chemicals that break down in the body and cause neurological damage.
Drinking the average soft drink adds 200 extra calories to your diet. If you drink two soft drinks per day, the extra calories alone will cause you to store an extra pound of fat every ten days. For every two soft drinks you consume, the average person would have to run six miles an hour for over an hour to burn them off.
Now, let’s look at a much better alternative beverage–water. Seventy-five percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. (Any possible correlation to our obesity rates?) Even mild dehydration slows down one’s metabolism as much as 3%. Dehydration has been shown to be the number one trigger of daytime fatigue. A mere 2% drop in body water triggers sluggish short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulties focusing on the computer screen or a printed page. Some research has shown that drinking 64-80 ounces of water daily can significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers. Drinking 50 ounces of water daily has been shown to decrease risk of colon cancer by 45%, breast cancer by 79%, and bladder cancer by 50%.
The more you know about what you put into your body, the better able you will be to make healthy choices and feel better about yourself. Now, the next time you are thirsty, which will you grab—a soft drink or a glass of water?
References: Fredericks-Franklin, Rachel, DC. “How Much Water.” Handout, Jan 2002. Martino, Russell J., Ph.D. “Colas, Soft Drinks, and Your Health.” Found online at Total Health Dynamics, June 2007. “Ten Reasons to Stay Away from Sodas and Energy Drinks.” To Your Health, June 2007.
By: Jessica Heller, DC, CSCS
Archive for October, 2009
Soft Drinks – Powerful Damage to Your Health
October 27th, 2009Developing Will Power and Self Discipline
October 25th, 2009
Most people admire and respect strong individuals, who have won great success by manifesting will power and self discipline. They admire people, who with sheer will power, self discipline and ambition, have improved their life, learned new skills, overcame difficulties and hardships, reduced their weight, rose high in their chosen field or advanced on the spiritual path.
The truth is that everyone can reach high levels of will power and self-discipline through a practical method of training. These inner power are not reserved for a few special people.
Will power and self discipline are two of the most important and useful inner powers in everyone’s life, and have always been considered as essential tools for success in all areas of life. They can be learned and developed like any other skill, yet, in spite of this, only few take any steps to develop and strengthen them in a systematic way.
What is will power?
It is the inner strength to make a decision, take action, and handle and execute any aim or task until it is accomplished, regardless of inner and outer resistance, discomfort or difficulties.
It bestows the ability to overcomes laziness, temptations and negative habits, and to carry out actions, even if they require effort, are unpleasant and tedious or are contrary to one’s habits.
What is self discipline?
It is the rejection of instant gratification in favor of something better. It is the giving up of instant pleasure and satisfaction for a higher and better goal.
It manifests as the ability to stick to actions, thoughts and behavior, which lead to improvement and success. Self-discipline is self-control, and it manifests in spiritual, mental, emotional and physical discipline.
The purpose of self-discipline is not living a limiting or a restrictive lifestyle. It does not mean being narrow minded or living like a fakir. It is one of the pillars of success and power. It bestows the inner strength to focus all your energy on your goal, and persevere until it is accomplished.
Both of these abilities are required for daily actions and decisions, and also for making major decisions and attaining major success. They are required for doing a good job, for studying, building a business, losing weight, bodybuilding and physical exercises, maintaining good relationships, changing habits, self improvement, meditation, spiritual growth, keeping and carrying out promises and for almost everything else.
One of the most simple and effective methods to develop will power and self-discipline is by refusing to satisfy unimportant and unnecessary desires. Everyone is constantly confronted and tempted by an endless stream of desires and temptations, many of which are not really important or desirable. By learning to refuse to satisfy every one of them, you get stronger.
Refusing and rejecting useless, harmful or unnecessary desires and actions, and intentionally acting contrary to your habits, sharpen and strengthen your inner strength. By constant practice your inner power grows, just like exercising your muscles at a gym increases your physical strength. In both cases, when you need inner power or physical strength, they are available at your disposal.
Here are a few exercises:
- Don’t read the newspaper for a day or two.
- Drink water when thirsty, in spite of your desire to have a soft drink.
- Walk up and down the stairs, instead of taking the lift.
- Get down from the bus one station before or after your destination, and walk the rest of the way.
- For one week, go to sleep one hour earlier than usual.
- If you like ice cream, don’t have any, for a day or two.
These are only a few examples of the many exercises that can be conducted in order to develop will power and self-discipline. You might think that practicing these exercises is being tough on yourself, but they add much to the storehouse of your inner strength. By following a systematic method of training you can reach far, have more control over yourself and your life, attain your goals, improve your life, and gain satisfaction and peace of mind.
Show and prove to yourself that you are strong and in control, and practice the above exercises for a little while, before passing any judgement.
© Copyright Remez Sasson
By: Remez Sasson