Is A Little Sugar So Bad?

We started the week off with announcing a fun giveaway featuring the all natural diet soda called Zevia. If you missed that post, you can view it here and get yourself entered to win!

Now I wanted to share what I've learned about sugar and artificial sugar substitutes, which makes it a whole lot easier to let go of regular soda and typical diet soda. You'll have to let me know what you think.

Most folks working at losing weight understand why regular soda is so bad. Besides all the artificial ingredients that God only knows what effect they have on our innards, the sugar is just the devil. I read this week about some of the scary truths about sugar and what it does to our bodies. Here's just a couple of the warnings I read about:

1. Drinking two cans of soda provides about 24 grams of sugar and reduces the efficiency of your white blood cells by 92%!!! This severely compromises your immune system....and that effect can last up to 5 hours!! That means while you're sipping a soda in a crowded restaurant or bar, and for 5 hours following, you better not be exposed to any nasty viruses or bacteria because you may not be able to fight off the invasion.
2. Refined sugar also overworks the pancreas which can lead to adrenal exhaustion (think: fight or flight instincts). When this happens, early menopause, type 2 diabetes, hypoglycemia and chronic fatigue are standing at the door. Yikes.

Okay. That's why so many of us have opted for diet sodas, knowing in our hearts that it's probably still not good, but better than the sugary versions.

Think again.

Diet sodas aren't much better. Though you won't get the sugar problems, the artificial sweeteners might make you wish you had the sugar problems instead:

1. Aspartame containing products have such a high concentration of naturally occuring amino acids that they disrupt nerve cell communication and have been linked to headaches, seizures, mental confusioin and balance problems. And, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
2. Saccharin containing products, the lesser of these two evils, is a derivative of petroleum!!! I didn't find any proof that saccharin is currently classified as a potential carcinogen...but seriously, petroleum??? We're talking some serious detoxification that your liver must do every time this PETROLEUM product is ingested.

But, we like our bubbles. Or the flavors. Or the way the coldness feels going down on a hot day.

Zevia is one all natural diet soda that won't have your liver writhing in chemicals...since my post on Monday, I've learned there are other all natural diet sodas too, like Blue Sky Soda (they have a REALLY cool website, too!). I'm sure there are others, too. I, for one, will be choosing one of these all natural options instead of the others that contain, ummm, really bad stuff.

If you wanna try Zevia too, you might be able to do it for FREE!! Hop on over to Monday's post and read how to enter, I've kept it very very simple. And, three lucky readers will win some free product!!

What have you heard about the bad effects of sugar and/or artificial sweeteners? The more knowledge we have about this stuff, the more we are armed to make really good decisions for our health, so I'm hoping you'll share what you've learned in the comments. :)

To our health,
Cheryl