Health & Fitness Blog

3 Surprising Reasons to Give Up Soda

Excerpts from David Zinczoenko with Matt Goulding, January 24, 2012

According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, the average American guzzles 44.7 gallons of the sweet stuff every year. Not sure what 44.7 gallons looks like? It’s about what you’d need to fill a small kiddie pool.

But the truth is, you don’t need me to tell you that soda isn’t healthy. We all know that America’s drink of choice contributes to our country’s ever expanding obesity problem.

Shocking Soda Fact #1: Soda fattens up your organs

A recent Danish study revealed that drinking non-diet soda leads to dramatic increases in dangerous hard-to-detect fats. Researchers asked participants to drink either regular soda, milk containing the same amount of calories as regular soda, diet cola, or water every day for six months. The results? Total fat mass remained the same across all beverage-consuming groups, but regular-soda drinkers experienced dramatic increases in harmful hidden fats, including liver fat and skeletal fat. The regular-soda group also experienced an 11 percent increase in cholesterol compared to the other groups! And don’t think switching to diet varieties will save you from harm: Artificial sweeteners and food dyes have been linked to brain cell damage and hyperactivity, and research has shown that people who drink diet soda have a higher risk of developing diabetes.

Shocking Soda Fact #2: Soda contains flame retardants

Some popular soda brands, including Mountain Dew, use brominated vegetable oil- a toxic flame retardant- to keep the artificial flavoring from separating from the rest of the liquid. This hazardous ingredient- sometimes listed as BVO on soda and sports drinks- can cause bromide poisoning symptoms like skin lesions and memory loss, as well as nerve disorders. If that’s not a good enough reason not to “Do the Dew”, I don’t know what is.

Shocking Soda Fact #3: Drinking soda makes you a lab rat

Many American soda brands are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, a heart- harming man-made compound derived mainly from genetically engineered corn. The problem? Genetically engineered ingredients have only been in our food chain since the 1990’s and we don’t know their long-term health impacts because the corporations that developed the crops never had to test them for long-term safety. Case in point: Some recent findings suggest that genetically engineered crops are linked to digestive tract damage, accelerated aging and even infertility.

For more info, Contact Sports Fitness and Fun Health Counselor Gail Lordy, CHC, AADP

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“I’m DYING of Thirst!”  Water and Your Health

Water is one of the most essential elements to health and it is so important that your body actually has a specific drought management system in place to prevent dehydration and ensure your survival. Water might be everywhere, but one must never take it for granted.

Water makes up more than two thirds of human body weight, and without water, we would die in a few days. The human brain is made up of 95% water, blood is 82% and lungs 90%. A mere 2% drop in our body’s water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on smaller print, such as a computer screen. Mild dehydration is one of the most common causes for daytime fatigue. An estimated seventy-five percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration. This is a pretty  scary statistic for a developed country where water is readily available through tap or bottle water.

Water is important to the mechanics of the human body. The body cannot work without it. All the cell and organ functions that make up our entire anatomy and physiology depend on water for their functioning.

• Water serves as a lubricant
• Water forms the base of saliva
• Water forms the fluids that surround the joints
• Water regulates the body temperature, as the cooling and heating is distributed through perspiration.
• Water helps to alleviate constipation by moving food through the intestinal tract and thereby eliminating waste- the best detox agent
• Water helps to regulate metabolism

In addition to the daily maintenance of our bodies, water also plays a key role in the prevention of disease. Drinking eight (eight ounce) glasses of water daily can decrease the risk of colon cancer by 45 %, bladder cancer by 50% and it can potentially even reduce the risk of breast cancer. And those are just a few examples! If you are overweight, you should drink another eight ounces for every twenty-five pounds of excess weight you carry.

Most people don’t drink enough water. The problem is that, though many decide to increase their intake, very few stick to it. Why, because during the first few days of drinking more water than your body is accustomed to, you’re running to the bathroom constantly. This can be discouraging. It seems that the water is coming out just as fast as it’s going in. What is really happening is that your body is flushing itself of water that it has been storing throughout all those years of “survival mode”. It takes a while but this is a beautiful thing happening to you. As you continue to give your body all the water it could ask for, it gets rid of what it doesn’t need. It gets rid of the water it was holding onto in your ankles, your hips and thighs, and even around your belly. You are excreting much more than you realize. Your body figures it doesn’t need to save these stores anymore, its trusting that the water will keep coming and if it does, eventually the flushing (of the body and the potty) will cease!

Water is the best beauty treatment. It flushes out impurities in your skin leaving it clear and glowing. Skin plumps up when hydrated.

*It is so important that you drink your eight glasses of water a day. Make this an everyday occurrence, a lifestyle change and I promise you that you will look and feel better! Your body will thank you!

For more info, Contact Sports Fitness and Fun Health Counselor Gail Lordy, CHC, AADP

Are YOU Eating Correctly?

In today’s busy world, people are not eating correctly, and have a myriad of lifestyle-induced illness along with hereditary issues.  Many people truly don’t know what is the right thing to eat. Television and the media is filled with a lot of misinformation, magic cures, miracle diets. So much of this is trash, invented solely to make somebody's wallet fatter! 

I am here to sort it all out with you. Read more here.

What I won’t do is put you on a diet or give you a pill. What I will do is educate you to begin a new lifestyle change.

It is all about changing old habits into better healthier habits so you maintain a healthy weight for the rest of your life.

Diets are temporary, people go on them, they lose the weight and after six months the weight is back. Then they are on to the next new diet.  Yo-yo weight loss and gain is very unhealthy and hard on your body. So let's stop the cycle now.

In 2012, committ to fit. You are what you eat, so let's start eating smarter and feeling better!

For more info: Cotact Sports Fitness and Fun Health Counselor Gail Lordy, CHC, AADP