Like so many others I set goals to eat less and exercise more, and part of that is counting calories every day. However, when I do my tally at the end of a meal I never write down the 32 ounces of Diet Coke I just drank with my meal. If this was a regular coke it would have been nearly 400 calories, however because the nutrition label says my Diet Coke is a 0 calorie drink I consider it ‘free’. More and more the studies have shown this is not entirely true.

When you drink a diet soda you’re essentially tricking your body. The sugar substitute in your drink doesn’t release any energy, so it doesn’t add any calories. However, studies have shown that it does still cause your pancreas to release insulin into your bloodsteam. This is a normal and necessary part of the digestive process, however when you consume excessive amounts of sugar or sugar substitute more insulin will be produced which has the side-effect of inhibiting HSL (hormons sensitive lipase); a hormone used by your body to burn the fat in foods so you can process the amino acids in them. By drinking diet drinks your tricking your body into thinking it has a lot of sugar to digest so it focuses on that instead of on breaking down the fats you just ate.

One of the most conclusive study on this topic was lead by Sharon Fowler at the University of Texas Health Center. This study looked at 1550 Americans aged 25 to 64. For people who drank 2 or more cans of Coke, or other regular soft-drinks the risk of becoming overweight was 47.2% higher than those who didn’t drink any soft drinks. For those people who drank 2 or more cans of Diet Coke or other diet soft drinks, the risk of becoming overweight was 57.1% higher than those people who didn’t drink soft drinks. This indicates that people who drank diet drinks were actually at a higher risk of being overweight than those who drank regular sodas!

It is important to note that this study does not show a causal link between Diet Drinks and obesity. Most people who drink diet sodas are more likely concerned about their weight than those who drink regular sodas. However, personally I’m going to cut back my diet drinks to one or two a week. While I wouldn’t consider myself addicted to caffeine I know that many other people are. Fortunately you can break the addiction in a couple of weeks, and when you do I’m sure your body will be better for it. Books like Addiction-Free–Naturally: Liberating Yourself from Tobacco, Caffeine, Sugar, Alcohol, Prescription Drugs, Cocaine, and Narcotics are available at Amazon.com or your loacl bookstore which can help you if you break your addition.

Diet Coke doesn’t provide me with any nutritional gain, and while it does make me happy to have something sweet to drink, it doesn’t make me any happier than a cup of herbal tea. So for me, I’m going to cut out the diet soda. If you’ve tried cutting diet soda out of your diet, or are thinking about doing so please post a comment. Other reads would be very interested to hear what you have to contribute to this topic.

I normally wouldn’t write about The Biggest Loser in this blog as I prefer to keep my content strictly related to weight loss, however this week’s reward really illustrated some of the pitfalls we face when changing to a more healthy lifestyle. In case you’re concerned about it, this post does contain spoilers so if you prefer not to read them please bookmark this post and come back and read it after you’ve seen the show.

In case you’ve somehow managed to miss one of the biggest shows in prime time for the past 7 seasons, the brief synopsis of this reality tv show is that there are two teams of people competing to see who can lose the most weight. Each team has a trainer and lives in a restricted environment where they workout for 8 hours a day and have a very structured routine including a structured diet.  Each episode spans the course of one week, during which time there is a competition where one team wins a reward or advantage in the game. At the end of each episode there is a weigh in of all contestants, and the team with the lowest percentage of weight loss must vote off one of the team members.

In today’s episode the black team won a reward called Twenty-Four Hours of Luxury. This reward granted the winning team 24 hours on the beach at a spa resort where they could eat a nice dinner. As you would imagine a reward that allows people who have been dieting for 10 weeks to eat whatever they want for a day can never be good. This reward was especially bad for many of the contestants, some of which actually gained weight. The weigh in results made me remember just how hard I have to work to lose weight, and emphasized just how bad even one meal out can be.

No one really ate anything out of the ordinary for a nice dinner out. Felipe had the most unhealthy meal out of everyone on the black team which consisted of 3 mini hamburgers, 2 chicken fingers, some french fries, and a few drinks. While this might be pushing it a little for a normal dinner out, if you replace the chicken fingers with an appetizer and the fries with a desert you would get about my normal dinner out at The Cheesecake Factory.

When it came time for weigh in the Black Team did much worse than usual. The one exception to that was Mike, who still lost 9 pounds despite the lack of exercise and nice dinner. Mike wasn’t able to consume alcohol since he is under 21, so at about 200 calories a drink he undoubtedly helped himself out there when many other contestants drank 3 to 5 glasses.

Biggest Loser 3/10/2009 Weigh-In

After seeing how some members of the Black Team were able to still lose weight, while others gained weight it seems certain that our biology plays a large part in what we can eat. The most important part of any diet is knowing yourself, and customizing that diet to your lifestyle. It is also important to remember that these people have had 10 weeks to adjust to their new lifestyle of constant exercise and low calorie – high protein foods. One of the most important things I will take away from this episode of Biggest Loser Couples is that we need to mix up our routine occasionally so our body doesn’t become complacent.

When you first start losing weight it can be very difficult to start seeing a difference in your weight. It usually takes the body a couple of weeks to get used to the new active lifestyle. Once the body gets used to this lower calorie and higher fitness routine it begins to expect it more frequently.  Soon your body has a new routine and if you eat more or exercise less for a week you can actually gain weight even though you’re living much healthier than you did prior to your weight loss. This is why it is very important to splurge sometimes, but to do it at the right times. Don’t ever eat a large meal later in the day, if you do you will go to sleep and not burn it off. Try not to eat out and skip your exercise routine in the same day because if you have a good workout your body will be able to utilize the extra nutrients you give it to help you lose weight.

If you’ve seen previous seasons of The Biggest Loser you know that many of the contestants end up gaining the weight back. This is because they are no longer in a controlled environment, and while they may be more healthy in general they can never keep up the 40 hour a week workout routine they’ve established on the show. If the contestants eased back into the real world more slowly their bodies would be able to better adjust to a realistic fitness routine and not be thrown into it suddenly. With any lifestyle change you make in your health, always remember to give your body a chance to adjust at its own pace.

As for exercise, don’t expect to be out on the treadmill for 45 minutes, that won’t help you get better quicker. Instead take a leisurely stroll outside. Walk to the post office or around your neighborhood. Make it a nice relaxing walk so you can enjoy the fresh air. This gets you out of the house with all of the germs and gives you a little exercise at the same time.

The bottom line when your sick is that you need to make getting better your first priority. If you can get yourself healthy quicker then you’ll be able to get back to a vigorous workout so you can start burning calories again. If you have a disease that will be with you for a while and need to find ways to continue to lose weight while your sick your best option is to talk to your doctor. Your doctor has the experience of working with others with your specific conditions and can monitor your health while you begin the new exercise routine. Be sure you take the doctors advice, and don’t over-exert yourself. The last thing you want is for your exercise to cause you to be less healthy than you are today.

I learned that the trick to Wii Fit Boxing is to maintain a good rythm and attempt to punch at just the right time. The punches don’t have to be hard they just have to be timed right. When you add in the stepping on and off the Wii Fit there is plenty of exercise taking place. I’m going to try and do at least 15 minutes of the Wii Fit tomorrow too.

I didn’t do a horrible job eating today either. I had lunch at Moe’s but I did go up for seconds on the chips. For dinner I had a Lean Cuisine and a bag of popcorn so that wasn’t bad. I worked at home today so durring one of my breaks I went for a walk around the apartment complex. It wasn’t quite a mile but I figure every bit helps.

Chex Mix was about 3 cups which from what I’ve found online was likely around 360 calories. I ate about 12 lifesavers which is about 120 calories. All in all, it was only 480 calories for a junk food dinner – unfortunately there was no nutritional content in that.

I didn’t make the time to exercise, but maybe tomorrow I’ll remember to wear my pedometer and figure out how many steps I walk in a day.

The celebration I went to involved reading the story of Passover. There is a book they read from (since there were non-Jewish people they read it in English). We all took turns reading a paragraph from it. Between each chapter we all drank a glass of wine; it was kind of like a Jewish drinking game! Once we were near the end of the reading we ate dinner. It really is amazing what you can make out of matzo if you’re so inclined. Matzo is basically unleavened bread, so I don’t think there would be any added nutritional value in eating it, however is sure tasted healthy.

I did enjoy the Matzo ball soup a lot; however my favorite part had to be the desert. There were all sorts of yummy chocolate treats to break Passover. I’m sure it wasn’t the healthiest meal in the world, but I can spoil myself twice a month now. I was saving one of my ‘bad’ days for today.