So what should I drink?

Now that I have ranted about soft drinks you're probably wondering what should you be drinking. The very best thing you can drink is purified water. Be careful of the flavored waters, as many of these contain calories from sugar. If you want flavored water, take purified water and add some fresh lime or lemon juice. If you absolutely have to have that sweet flavor, add some stevia or sweet leaf, which is a natural sweetener.

Remember that juices contain a fair amount of sugar as well, so drinking juice throughout the day is not a great idea either.

Soft drinks and artificial colorings

Here's another issue regarding soft drinks. The artificial colorings that are added to soft drinks can promote attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The primary culprit is yellow number 5.

I've gotten on a rant here about soft drinks, but we need to be aware of what they are doing to not only us but our children. Some schools have recognized the dangers and removed the machines from their grounds, however, many still have have them. As a parent or educator, think about what this is doing to the health of your children. You do not have control over what your children ingest when they are away from you, so have a plan to minimize the damage

Carbonation

In addition to the empty calories in soft drinks, there is also a concern about the carbonation. Carbonated drinks actually leach calcium out of the bone, setting the individual up for osteoporosis. This is particularly alarming for our teenagers who are building bone. While we all break down and rebuild bone every day of our lives, the matrix of the bone becomes weakened when calcium is leached away. We reach our peak bone mass at about age 35, so it is critical during those first 35 years of our lives that we build as strong a matrix as possible.

With teens drinking so much carbonated beverage, they are actually setting themselves up for osteoporosis later in life. They will not see this as a problem, because as teenagers, we all feel and felt invincible. It's hard to relate to what will happen to these young people as they age.

Effects of Sodas

The effects of sodas on our health is staggering. Drinking of carbonated soft drinks has been referred to as liquid candy, and so it is. These drinks add empty calories to our diet and if you just thought, "I only drink diet soft drinks" you have something else to be aware of in terms of your health. More on diet drinks later.

Here are some statistics that should blow your mind in regard to carbonated soft drinks. Did you know:

• soft drinks are responsible for 7% of all calories in the American diet
• in 1998 consumption of soft drinks was 56.1 gallons per person in America
• in 2004 consumption of soft drinks was 52.2 gallons per person in America
• 13% of calories eaten in teenagers comes from soft drinks

I don't know about you, but I don't drink soft drinks and have not for many years. That means that somebody is getting my 52 gallons of soft drink each year. I find that pretty scary!

Just on of the health issues here is the increasing number of individuals who are developing Type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes is most often related to obesity. What we are seeing today is more and more teenagers and children developing obesity and also becoming Type 2 diabetics. That certainly scare me and should certainly scare you.

Caffeine

I've been talking about coffee and caffeine. There are a couple of things that you should also be aware of in regard to caffeine. While coffee is a source of caffeine, there are other ways that we get caffeine. Regular tea, both green and black, actually contains more caffeine than coffee. Colas also contain caffeine. One of the worse soft drinks is Mountain Dew in terms of the amount of caffeine.

So when I said 1-2 cups of coffee, that means if you're drinking coffee, cut the colas and tea. If you don't like coffee and are drinking tea, the same rules apply. Be sure to drink a glass of purified water for each cup or glass of tea. My suggestion is that if you are drinking cola or Mountain Dew, switch to something else. There are other detrimental effects from drinking sodas.

More on Coffee

Yesterday I spoke about coffee. I want to add a couple things today about some positive effects of coffee. Caffeine can be helpful in the person with migraine. Because of it's diuretic effect in the brain, it can help the person with migraines. A word of caution here, moderation is the key. Too much caffeine can actually accentuate the migraine, so limit your caffeine to 1-2 cups per day.

There has been some controversy over the effect of caffeine and the potential for developing Parkinson's disease. The studies demonstrate that males have less risk of developing Parkinson's if they have and are coffee drinkers. Again moderation is key here. More is not necessarily better. Women are a bit a different story, although most of the researh is mixed, the latest studies show that women who are not on hormone replacement therapy who are coffee drinkers have less chance of developing Parkinson's disease. Those who are on hormone replacement therapy actually have a greater chance of developing Parkinson's disease.

One other area that is of concern with caffeine is osteoporosis. There are no definitive studies which state that caffeine has either a negative or positive effect. However, there is some evidence that those who drink their coffee with milk actually are getting some calcium which may assist with decreasing osteoporosis.

Coffee

As many of you know, the main effect of coffee comes from the caffeine. Caffeine has several effects on the body. One most of us know is that it is a stimulant and therefore stimulates the central nervous system. What that means is that it can make you more alert. Many have used coffee to "jump start" are day - make us more alert. This is not a bad thing, but remember it contains no nutrition to feed the brain and keep alert and functioning at a high level.

There are some other things that caffeine does. It can increase the heart rate, increase the blood pressure, increase our basal metabolic rate and increase the function of the lungs. None of these is particularly detrimental unless, you heart disease or high blood pressure. But even with these conditions, coffee is not unsafe is taken in moderation. This means 1-2 cups (8 oz cups) per day. It is best to spread it out, so have a cup with breakfast and then one some other time during the day.

There is also a diuretic effect to caffeine, so be sure to drink a class of purified water for every cup of coffee that you drink. This will help conteract the diuretic effect.

Can't eat in the morning?

My husband was one of those people who used to say that he couldn't eat in the morning. I spent 25 years trying to get him to eat breakfast. Then I finally got smart and asked him why he couldn't eat breakfast. After much discussion, the bottom line was that if he ate breakfast, he was hungry by 11:00 a.m. Once we started him on a breakfast that met his nutritional needs, including making his brain be more alert and clear, he didn't get hungry at 11:00. Part of this was also telling himself that he wouldn't be hungry at 11:00, but mainly it was giving him the right nutrients to feed the brain and keep it functioning at a clear and healthy level.

Are you telling yourself you can't eat breakfast? Do you only eat or rather I should say drink coffee for breakfast? More tomorrow on coffee.

Mother was right

Yesterday we changed your thought to ideal body. That was the first step. Now I'm going to reiterate something I have written about before. Your Mother was right. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Your body has gone approximately 12 hours without food, so your brain, and in fact all of your cells are in need of some energy in the form of food. If the cells go much longer without food, they will store as much as they can into fat stores when food does come along. This storage is to help protect them in that they may not get fed for a long time again. So more food gets put into the fat stores.

Skipping meals accentuates this problem. I've had people say to me that they don't understand why they can't lose weight when they "only eat one meal a day." Does it make sense why this might be a problem?

I'm back

I know I have been away for awhile. I have been working on some new things. One of the things that has come to mind as I have been coaching people regarding their ideal body is the whole idea of dieting. That word has such a negative connotation for almost everyone. This is because most diets bring a sense of deprivation in that there are lots of foods you cannot eat and if you really want to lose weight you have to go to the gym 3-5 days a week. The first thought that most people have when they think about a diet is all of the foods that they will have to give up or the fear that I will have to starve myself on this diet.

The first step to success in attaining your ideal body is to throw the word diet out of your vocabulary. Substitute the word ideal body and all of the negative connections will not come up for you.