Monday, March 28, 2011

Gas Prices Hitting Your Pocket Book?

Gas prices are crazy and they are going to get worse.  Here's an idea to help you save some money elsewhere.  Drink water.  It's nearly free at home or about 1 cent per cup if you choose to filter it.  Clean sources of water are usually available at the work place and are almost always free.  Yup, it is that simple to save.  Soda, soft drinks, or pop as it's called around these parts costs over $10 per gallon.  It certainly isn't as good for you as plain, old water.  Water is the only liquid anyone ever needs to put in their mouth.  After a period of removing soft drinks from your diet, you will find water very quenching.  I can guzzle a glass of cold water in a matter of seconds and absolutely love it.


Let me be clear though, water is not the only liquid I drink but it probably consists of 75% of what ends up in my belly.  I do get crazy on occasion and treat myself.  The other 25% is homemade smoothies, tea, coffee, and alcoholic beverages.  Coffee and tea are also inexpensive but I don't drink a lot of either because of the way they can make me feel.  Wired and sometimes nauseous.  Anyways, that is what I drink but if you are not convinced to stop drinking soft drinks for financial reasons, how about for health reasons?


Here are some key stats from a study regarding regular and diet soft-drink drinkers.

For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
  • 26% for up to 1/2 can each day
  • 30.4% for 1/2 to one can each day
  • 32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
  • 47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.
For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:
  • 36.5% for up to 1/2 can each day
  • 37.5% for 1/2 to one can each day
  • 54.5% for 1 to 2 cans each day
  • 57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.
The study referenced is here.  Easy to read article is here.  Too bad they also didn't compare non soft-drink drinkers.

The crazy thing is people who drink "diet" soft-drinks are doing it to lose weight yet they are the ones who are more likely to become overweight.  I am not going to speculate on the cause of this phenomena.  I am not sure whether diet beverages are actually causing people to become overweight.  It could be likely that overweight people happen to drink diet soda more often.  In the end, it's crap and it's not helping anyone lose weight.


CP

2 comments:

Jan said...

I drink way too much coffee (and alcohol, if the truth be told - I like my red wine! LOL), but haven't had a soda, diet or otherwise, in maybe a year. I just don't like them any more.

BTW, having a giveaway of Mark Sisson's newest cookbook over on my blog.

Be said...

But it mixes too well with my Dumb and Riet!