When I finally decided to take a serious stab at losing weight fast, the first thing I did was evaluate my diet. Man, was I in for a shocker!
I used to drink several cans of soda a day. Sometimes, I’d even get one of those 64 oz drink containers at the local 7-11 or gas station convenience store. A 12-ounce can of Coke has about 150 calories, so I was mindlessly adding 600 or more useless calories into my diet every day! No wonder I had never really made any progress in my previous weight loss attempts.
Not only that but those sodas were chock full of high-fructose corn syrup. High-fructose corn syrup is a lot cheaper than sugar because it’s heavily subsidized by the US government. That’s why you find it almost everywhere. Cookies, candies, crackers, bottled iced tea! You name it! Not only will drinking it make it harder for you to lose weight fast, its consumption is connected to obesity, heart disease and a bunch of other problems I don’t want.
I immediately stopped drinking all sodas. Even the ones with artificial sweeteners with only 1 calorie. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be some chemical company’s guinea pig. I’ll admit it going cold turkey wasn’t easy. It took a couple weeks before I was able to completely remove soda from my diet.
Instead, I drank water. Sometimes with lemon. Or, I’d drink iced tea or hot tea. However, I stayed away from bottled iced tea because most of that stuff is just high-fructose corn syrup and water. I drank it without sugar and found that it wasn’t that bad and that it actually quenched my thirst easier. I think sugar drinks aren’t suited for thirst quenching because the sugar just makes you crave more fluid.
That minor diet change had a profound effect on me. First, I instantly reduced a serious calorie item from my diet. Second, I began to feel better after doing so. It’s hard to quantify but I actually felt better when I didn’t drink soda.