We have been discussing the importance of starting on a lifestyle modification plan. Your lifestyle modification plan needs to be comprehensive, realistic and actionable. No matter what diet you select on the healthy diet spectrum, getting your head in the right space and setting yourself up for success is invaluable. Action is where the rubber meets the road, though!
Being willing to change is great, but ultimately talk is cheap. Let your action be the physical manifestation of your commitment to change!
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.”
– Bruce Lee
The acronym for the standard American diet is SAD. Our diet here in America is so bad that picking a place to start that will show immediate results is like standing in front of a dartboard blindfolded and hitting a bullseye with the first six throws. The SAD diet is just that bad! Often during weight-loss dietetic consultations, if a person is overwhelmed by the breadth of the lifestyle modification challenge, I will say, “You know what, forget about all of that. Why don’t you just pick one thing that you feel is contributing to your weight problem and give that up for just one week and let’s see what that does?” The “just one thing” approach often provides a welcome sense of relief to folks that are intimidated by trying to change many aspects of their life in one go. I leave it up to them, and invariably they name one thing that should be changed in their diet without any assistance from me. It doesn’t matter if you call them “low hanging fruit” or “no-brainers” or something else. You don’t have to look far to find half a dozen food items that everybody in the country knows are contributing to American’s weight problem in a significant way! Today we are discussing sugary drinks.
In the United States, “sugary drinks are the key driver of our overconsumption of added sugars” in our diet. Sugary drinks account for 46 percent of added sugar in the American diet. Snacks and sweets represent the second-highest contribution of added sugar in the American diet with 31 percent.
In 1947, Americans consumed 10.8 gallons of soda per person every year. In 1998, it was 40.7 gallons per person every year and in 2015 it was 28.6 gallons. Sales of full-sugar pop are down in America, and that is a good thing! But we have shifted to other sugary drinks that present a healthier façade. Sales of sugary fruit drinks are up, sugary sports drinks are up, full-sugar bottled tea sales are up, value-added water like vitamin waters are up, very high sugar energy drinks are up and sales of full-sugar coffee drinks are up.
A 20-ounce pop has a whopping 16 teaspoons of sugar in each container. If a bottled coffee drink measured 20 ounces, it would have about the same 16 teaspoons of sugar in each container. If a full sugar bottled tea measured 20 ounces, it would have 12.25 teaspoons of sugar in each container. Vitamin water touted as health drinks have 8.25 teaspoons of sugar in each 20-ounce container, sports drinks are about the same and fruit juice has almost 9 teaspoons of sugar in each 20-ounce container. Some of the pop alternatives are better choices, but none is as good as a sugar-free drink.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation non-alcoholic beverage trend analysis for 2015, “a majority of Americans consume at least one sugary drink on a given day.” That translates into approximately 175 calories from refined white sugar, representing eight percent of the 2,300 calories a day needed by a 6-foot-tall male and 9.5 percent of the daily 1,900 calories required by a five-foot, eight-inch woman. I know plenty of people that drink two 20-ounce full-sugar sodas a day or more, and I bet you do too! Imagine getting 20 percent of the calories you should be eating every day from soda. These calories are not food; they have no nutritional value and are extra or added calories. They are the added calories that represent the excess weight we carry around.
I wouldn’t call myself a data junky, but I do like to know that what I am reading, talking about and ultimately passing on to other people is accurate. Even though data on American consumption of food has been compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture since the first years of the 20th century, as late as when I started my lifestyle modification in 2003, that information at USDA–although not hidden–was not highlighted and easy to find. In 2021, everything I have mentioned today is pulled out of large data sets and is highlighted in a publication entitled Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The USDA has included many reasons that America has become the unhealthiest population in the history of the planet right along with their suggestions for a healthier eating plan that can help get out of this mess. The Dietary Guidelines document is in the references with a link so you can access it yourself. Remember that having the information and being willing to change is great, but ultimately talk is cheap. You need to take the willingness and the information you have and actually DO something!
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.”
– Bruce Lee
If you are serious about losing weight and improving health, eliminating full-sugar drinks from your diet is a great place to start. If you put it together with last week’s suggestion of seriously reducing cheese, you’d be off to a great start that would show measurable results almost immediately. Next week we’ll see if we can identify one more no-brainer place to start!
Here are the references for today’s healthy eating tip.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Health.gov. Our Work. Food & Nutrition. Previous Dietary Guidelines. 2015. https://health.gov/our-work/food-nutrition/previous-dietary-guidelines/2015. (Accessed 05/07/2021.)
Woodward-Lopez G, Kao J, Ritchie L. To what extent have sweetened beverages contributed to the obesity epidemic? Public Health Nutrition. 2011;14(3):499-509.