8 Reasons to Kick Your Soda Habit for Good

I know, you love your soda. And, yes, there are worse things in the world (cigarettes, for instance!). But, whenever someone asks me what they should do to get healthy, my first answer is always: stop drinking soda and drink more water, pretty please. Here are some important reasons why ...


*It's associated with a higher risk of osteoporosis
*It may lead to kidney stones
*It's addicting
*It wastes hundreds of dollars each year
*It can rot your teeth
*It can make you eat more (past studies have indicated that diet soda may actually trick your body into false hunger)
*It may contain fecal matter (from fountain drinks, really)
*It can lead to calcium deficiency

No thanks, right?

How much sugar is in one can of soda?

Ever bother to look at the back of a soda can? Maybe you've seen that a regular can of soda — 12 ounces — has about 150 calories. And that's where most people stop reading. There's no fat, and hardly any sodium. Nothing to see here. But there is some sugar. 40 grams.

Ok. 40 grams. That's not a really big number. Some people just like sweet drinks. There's people who order a small coffee — McDonalds serves a 12 ounce small coffee — and they put 5 or 6 sugar packets in it. Maybe they use sugar cubes. 1 sugar packet = 1 sugar cube.

So what?

Well, for one thing: if you're at risk for diabetes, lots of sugar doesn't help you at all. You probably know that when the body digests sugar, your pancreas releases insulin to help you use the sugar energy. Too much sugar, and you can wear out your pancreas.

Not to mention that sugar makes you fat. How fat? Well, let's pretend that you consume the exact number of calories needed to power your body, every single day, and no more. That's a pretty good diet. Now, to reward yourself, you enjoy a soda every day. Just one, you don't want to go overboard.

That one soda per day adds 150 calories every day. 150 calories * 365 days equals 54,750 calories each year. Since there's 3500 calories per pound, that one soda per day adds 15.64 pounds per year. If you weren't already fat, you will be soon.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?