My secret love…Diet Coke

photo credit: g0upil

Sadly, it appears I am going to have to give up my secret love – Diet Coke.

We have had a long and somewhat mixed relationship, with highs and lows. As a child (which was in the days before Diet Coke), I was not allowed to have Coke. Consequently once I turned 18 and moved out into my own house, I lived on it – and being a young image-conscious female, it was the Diet Coke that I got into. It was a great way to stay awake on shift work. It was how I first tried spirits (rum and coke). And while it wasn’t available in Africa when I visited there, it has been available pretty much everywhere else around the world. (For your future reference, Coke is available in Africa and is usually safer than drinking the water. For all I know Diet Coke might be available there as well now. And in France it is called Coca-light.)

Then came the love-hate relationship with caffeine. I love caffeine – it gives me a boost. I suspect I might be particularly sensitive to the joys of caffeine, as two members of my close family are in fact allergic to caffeine. I on the other hand get a bit of a high from it, an energy lift.

However I accept that large amounts of caffeine are not good for you, so I have several times gone cold turkey on the caffeine. Headaches, tiredness etc. The longest I stayed off it was two years…but eventually the smell of a coffee in a cafe lured me back. And once I have started on coffee, the Diet Coke creeps back as well. While nice coffee is not always available (and life is too short to drink horrible coffee), Diet Coke is often easily available in a variety of cafes, shops, supermarkets and restaurants, and is portable as well. And so nice on a hot summer’s day.

It was probably almost ten years ago that I first saw something linking diet drinks with weight gain. It was on an Oprah Show, one of the many about diet. This diet was called the Carbohydrate Addicts Diet, or something like that. Another version of the high protein, low carb diet.

The people pushing this diet said that the sweeteners in diet drinks trick your body into thinking it is getting sugars and it responds chemically as if it was dealing with a large amount of sugar. When the sugars don’t in fact hit the blood stream, the body thinks it is in a time of fasting and hence next time it gets carbs, it is primed to store them away as fat. Quelle horreur! This lovely substance I had been merrily drinking away thinking it was keeping me slim, had in fact been priming my body to store fat!

I have no idea if this is the correct mechanism, but it did seem to correlate with the number of larger women I saw drinking diet Coke and the number of skinny women drinking full-strength Coke. I asked a dietician I knew at the time but she felt that this was rubbish – she was very much of the calories in – calories out methodology.

Fast forward to now, and it seems there was something in the whole sweeteners tricking your body chemistry thing, after all.

So once again I am having to give up my secret love for Diet Coke.

December 2011: UPDATE! A really interesting article on coke addiction and the influence of food scientists in the development of adictive flavourings can be found here.

Fitness campaign

photo credit H@rpoon

Despite very convincing previous postings (12,000 steps and Reasons I should be exercising), you will be surprised to find that I have not in fact been inspired to exercise. Perhaps the recent posting Reasons I should be allowed to eat what I want may have been the give-away clue.

So I have finally bitten the bullet and seen an exercise physiologist.

Now I have to say, I am a relatively educated person, and I have worked in the health industry for many years. I know about Type II diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, cholesterol, lifestyle risk factors, Syndrome X etc. I’ve read the women’s magazines, taken the quizzes and enrolled in Weight-Watchers (a number of years ago when, in retrospect, I really didn’t need it). So I think I know quite a lot about diet, exercise, metabolism etc. Fundamentally, I know what I am supposed to do, I just don’t do it.

I have also seen the various internet adverts promising the “secret exercise tricks” that can help you lose weight rapidly without having to spend hours exercising. Now much as these ads had my name all over them, I did resist sending any money to find out the secret exercise tricks. I am sceptical about miracle cures, much as I would really love to see one (use one and be the living proof).

Well, turns out there is such a thing as a secret exercise trick – and I will reveal it here! With no guarantees, as I haven’t actually tried it yet, but a very convincing exercise physiologist showed me the graphs and some pretty diagrams which he highlighted appropriately as he explained it. So I am convinced.

The trick is actually to exercise like a sprinter, not an endurance runner. And since I am starting from a very (very) low level of fitness, this means interval training. Five repetitions of 30 seconds working at maximum capacity, interspersed with two minutes of low level exercise. All done and finished in fifteen minutes.

Apparently exercising like a sprinter means you use sugars while you are exercising, but your body resets to burn fats over the next two days. So I only have to do this 3 or 4 times a week. I can probably manage to motivate myself for that!

Meanwhile, if you’d like to send your money for this amazing fat-burning secret, please drop me a line and I’ll send you my PO Box.

Reasons I should be allowed to eat what I want.

photo credit: Magic Madzik

We are bombarded on a daily basis with messages about healthy eating – what we should eat, what we should eat more of, what we should eat less of, what we shouldn’t eat at all. A confusingly, sometimes these lists seem to coincide, so I am tole that coffee is bad for blood pressure, cancer etc, but apparently reduces the risk of stroke, heart attack and depression in women. Ditto for chocolate and red wine. Each new study seems to come out with another recommendation. I just can’t keep track of them all.

How does a sane person decide on a reasonable diet? I have decided to ignore all studies and go back to basics. Fruit and vegetables are good for you. Proteins are good for you. I don’t think there is any dispute about this. So here are the reasons I should be allowed to eat what I like:

1. sugar : sugar is made from sugar cane, which is a grass. Therefore it is a vegetable.
2. cheese : made from milk which contains calcium, proteins and various vitamins. Calcium is good for bones and teeth.
3. chocolate: chocolate is a real winner. Made from cocoa beans (a legume), milk (as above) and sugar (as above)
4. wine: made from grapes, a fruit, and yeast, a protein.
5. breads, crackers, biscuits and cakes : made from wheat (more grasses) and yeast (protein). Cakes and biscuits often have sugar and eggs in them as well – more good things!
6. coffee: yes, coffee. Made from coffee beans. More legumes! Plus, you may consume your coffee with sugar and milk, thereby adding another vegetable serve, calcium and protein.

These are really the staples of life – aren’t they? The new six food groups, instead of five? But in the interest of opening up other food options, I will add a few more.

7. Chips: made from potato – a vegetable. (This goes for crisps as well.) Chips with tomato sauce therefore count as both a vegetable and fruit serving. Finally – fruit and veg the children will eat without complaining!
8. Pizza: well it has been ewll known that pizza is the healthiest of all fast foods. Based on bread (grain / grass), tomato sauce (fruit), cheese (for the calcium and protein) then a variety of vegetables and fruits such as capsicum, onion, olives. And maybe some meat (more protein)
9. Hamburger: so along the same lines, hamburgers have bread, meat, vegetables such as lettuce and onion, fruit such as tomato and sometimes tomato sauce as well.
10. Butter: to round it out to ten, and because what would bread be without butter? and jam (a fruit)? Butter is made from the cream in milk, therefore it contains calcium, proteins and vitamins.

I’ve almost convinced myself!

DISCLAIMER : This should not be taken as serious medical or dietary advice. And PLEASE don’t let my doctor see this posting!

If you liked this post you might also like 12,000 steps, Chocolate and Red Wine and Reasons I should be exercising