Hidden Calories That Ruin Your Waistline

The number one source of hidden calories is soda

Do you drink soda? You might call it pop, or soda pop, or soft drinks. Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Mountain Dew -- do you drink these?

If you drink more than one soda a day…

You might not even imagine what it is doing to you.

You are addicted to sugar

Each 12 ounce soda gives you about 10 teaspoons of sugar. And that is all there is in the can. No vitamins. No minerals. Maybe some phosphorus -- which makes your bones weak. Maybe some caffeine. And that's it.

That "pick-me-up" drink you like so much is sucking the life out of you. It pulls out all the nutrition from your body -- the vitamins and minerals and enzymes you need to digest the sugar. If you drink more than one soda a week it is probably the number one cause of you being overweight.

If you drink one each day it is guaranteed to make a huge difference in your weight.

It takes the place of good food that does have the nutrition you need.

And it doesn't satisfy your appetite

Coke and sprite don't satisfy your appetite. You just take in the hollow calories - -you feel a little better for a while - but then you are hungry.

You eat just as much after a soda as you would have eaten without the soda.

So you end up taking in more calories. And you gain weight.

The hidden calories in one soda a day means adding about 15 pounds in a year. (If you don't believe it do the math.) If you didn't do anything else but knock off the soda you can drop 10 or 15 pounds without even trying.

If you drink soda everyday you have to go "cold turkey." You just have to stop -- no more. Period. They are too addicting to try to cut back.

Are your kids overweight?

There's a good chance your kids are overweight. If they are you have to get the soda out of the house. All of it. It doesn't matter if they cry or scream.

If you have soda in the house it is setting them up to be fat all their lives. Kids that drink soda are more likely to be overweight. More likely to develop high cholesterol. To have diabetes. Heart attacks.

These are your kids we are talking about. This is not some theory -- its a fact. You love your children. Get the junk food out of the house.

Drink something else

You can find something else to drink. Try water. You can lose weight drinking water.

There are no hidden calories and it is good for you. You might not like the taste of water. If you drink sugary drinks all the time you probably don't.

If you want something with a little kick to it try sparkling water. Perrier is excellent -- it is an acquired taste -- because it has some fizz and it kind of burns the throat a little the way soda does. Or you can drink club soda and it doesn't have any calories.

If you eat too much sugar your taste buds get paralyzed and you won't like the taste of anything but sugar.

Did you know that spring water has a bit of a sweet taste? If you eat junk food and drink Coke you probably can't taste it. It is like wearing too much perfume -- you can't smell it anymore. And people that smoke can't taste or smell anything.

Even milk is very sweet. If it doesn't taste that way to you it is because you have paralyzed your taste buds by the junk food you take in.

So here is probably the number one thing you can do that will take the weight off: Stop all the soda pop right now. And you will see the pounds melt away.

Should you drink fruit juice?

You've heard it is good for you. It has vitamin C, right?

Too much fruit juice is not good for you either. It is still mostly sugar -- there is no fat or protein in fruit juice. It might have a little vitamin C. But it doesn't kill your appetite -- so you eat more.

If you drink juice don't drink a lot. Maybe 4 ounces is enough.

It is better to eat the fruit. You will get fiber that way -- it is actually food. And it will help better with your appetite.

An apple is much better than apple juice, and an orange is better than orange juice.

What about restaurants?

If you eat in restaurants you can forget it. There are just too many hidden calories. They put fat into everything. Margarine in the green beans. Oil in the tomato sauce. Tons of oil in the omelettes. You can't eat in restaurants without getting fat.

Even if you order something simple in a restaurant it doesn't taste like the food you make at home. Why? Because they put so much fat into everything.

Look around a restaurant some time. Have you ever seen them make hash brown potatoes? The keep a bucket of hot oil on the grill. The use a big ladle and they dump on the oil as the potatoes are cooking. They just soak them in oil.

Let's just face facts. You can't eat in restaurants and lose weight.

How about hidden calories in your coffee?

Are you putting cream in your coffee? Do you have any idea how many hidden calories you can add with cream or milk in your coffee? Lots and lots.

Ask a New Yorker sometime what's a coffee regular. They'll tell you two cream and two sugars. Well, if you are drinking coffee regular and you can't see your feet you might have the reason why.

How about Starbucks? The Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino Blended Coffee has 420 calories. That's not coffee -- that's a dessert. You might as well be eating pie and ice cream.

If you want to lose weight cut out all the hidden calories in the soda and the juice and the restaurants and the Starbucks.

By the way, does this seem like a little thing to you? Well, it is the little things that count when it comes to losing weight.

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