Do I need to quit soda?

Lovee it wrote:

Yeah I know it's bad for me but it's not as bad as drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Besides I'm pretty skinny anyways(6 feet, 138 lbs) so I'm not worried about that.

You won't be skinny forever if you drink so much soda. Soon you will look like every other average obese American.

Do yourself a favor and work on getting it to just special occasions. I'm completely addicted to it to the point that my teeth are rotting and my skin is horrible. It's the only vice I have. Never did drugs and was never really a drinker. Used to be a world class athlete. My personal opinion, and it's just that, is that the artificial sweetener in the diet drinks is so effective that I think my body thinks it's the real thing. So what happens? Easy, the more insulin my body produces to offset it the less fat I burn. That's just my opinion but I can't get off it.

Good luck.

Just out of curiosity, how old are you?

Replace it with coffee. Regular soda is full of sugar, which is so toxic to your health and can really affect your energy levels. Diet soda is full of chemicals that are definitely not good for anything. I used to be addicted to diet soda. It took more than 5 attempts to quit drinking it. Much harder than quitting alcohol. It's hard the first month or so but after that it's a breeze.

Soda - diet or regular - is poison.

It's bad only in that it shows your poor taste. Now, if you were inclined to drink Birtch beer instead of Mountain Dew, then there'd be no issue whatsoever. Real homemade sassafras beer is even better.

Lovee it wrote:

Yeah I know it's bad for me but it's not as bad as drinking alcohol

Some would argue that drinking small amounts of alcohol is better than drinking any soda.

Soda has two major drawbacks.

1st is the sugar. At your age right now you have no problem burning it, but eventually it will catch up to you. My short story: at age 21 I was 126 lbs in XC. Over a coupe months I went into indoor at 138 lbs without any change to my diet or training. It was all in my belly. Sugar makes runners "skinny fat". It has taken me 4 years to really break my sugar habits and get back to a healthy 130. I am 5'8" A side note, Beer does the same thing because it is essentially just sugar... aka beer belly

2nd the carbonation can strip calcium from the body. This is bad for your teeth, but this is letsrun so who cares about teeth. Stripping the calcium is a bigger concern because it can lead to stress fractures. A combination of a little extra weight and lower calcium is a recipe for a cycle of injury.

Do yourself a favor, kick the can.

Illium wrote:

2nd the carbonation can strip calcium from the body. This is bad for your teeth, but this is letsrun so who cares about teeth. Stripping the calcium is a bigger concern because it can lead to stress fractures. A combination of a little extra weight and lower calcium is a recipe for a cycle of injury.

Do yourself a favor, kick the can.

Proof?

My bad, it is the phosphoric acid not carbonation.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/84/4/936/4632980

Illium wrote:

My bad, it is the phosphoric acid not carbonation.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/84/4/936/4632980

OK, good. So, I don't need to quit drinking seltzer water.

If it was good enough for Frank Shorter, it is good enough for you...

Frank Shorter was probably a better runner to begin with.

i stopped drinking it about 9 months ago, i know just drink water, almond milk, or la croix

Illium wrote:

Soda has two major drawbacks.

1st is the sugar. At your age right now you have no problem burning it, but eventually it will catch up to you. My short story: at age 21 I was 126 lbs in XC. Over a coupe months I went into indoor at 138 lbs without any change to my diet or training. It was all in my belly. Sugar makes runners "skinny fat". It has taken me 4 years to really break my sugar habits and get back to a healthy 130. I am 5'8" A side note, Beer does the same thing because it is essentially just sugar... aka beer belly

.

Lol. Gotta love letsrun.

So....you gained 12 lbs of fat in your belly over a couple months without changing anything in your diet or exercise routine, because your body finally couldn't handle the sugar you consumed and one day it just started getting fat with, again, no diet or activity changes. Riiight...

And beer doesn't give you a beer belly, unless, you are consuming more calories than you are burning. Absolutely.

Lovee it wrote:

Yeah I know it's bad for me but it's not as bad as drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. Besides I'm pretty skinny anyways(6 feet, 138 lbs) so I'm not worried about that.

Like with a lot of vices...you are running enough and young enough that it does not impact your weight and probably has a low impact on your overall health (right now) because of your high activity level.

It is not a good habit though. Performance wise, cutting Mt Dew out of your diet will have a small or maybe no impact. In terms of long term health it would be greatly beneficial to cut it out or greatly reduce intake.

It prolly won't affect your running or physique but its generally bad for you and your teeth. Its straight empty calories. Just switch to gatorade mate.

I've heard gatorade is also bad for you, with all the added sugar.

Actually I think soda is good for you. Don't buy into the hype.

Just like this whole plastic bag thing.... wouldn't be shocked some day to find out Glad is behind it so they can sell more small bathroom size trash bags.

Buy hot dogs not hype.

I drink 2 gallons of soda a day. Drinking soda is my life. Don't quit drinking soda, it is the meaning of life.