I'm not a certified health nut, but there are certain foods that are taboo for me. At the top of the list is sugar-filled soda. Quite frankly, I don't know why anyone drinks it because there's absolutely no nutritional benefit. But when I see an overweight person gulping this stuff down, I am truly appalled.
Losing extra pounds is hard for anyone but one easy way would be to cut this stuff out. One 12-ounce bottle of Coke contains 140 calories. If you drink two a day (which isn't abnormal for Coke addicts), you will have consumed enough calories to put on a pound every two weeks from Coke alone. At the end of a year, that would be 26 extra pounds.
But look at it in reverse. Cut out those two Cokes and substitute water or plain coffee or tea and you can lose 26 pounds. There's no silver bullet for dieting but cutting out one bad food can take you a long way.
I don't mean to pick on Coke, of course. There are lots of liquid calories with questionable nutritional value: frozen coffee drinks, commercial smoothies, sugary fruit juices. Public health officials are currently on a campaign against these drinks and I applaud them. They're producing some creative ways to get the message across. If you really want to be scared off these treats, check out this PSA. A warning: it's not for the faint-hearted.
