(formerly)tangentmind.org

So, I just ranted for two hours to my girlfriend, Leslie, about how her habit of drinking sprite every day is unhealthy and a big reason for the weight gain she has seen over the past few years. I think she may have totally missed the point though and just heard(and seen, because a lot of it was text messenging)"he thinks I'm fat", "he hates me". I don't understand how cutting down on soft drinks is that big of a deal. It's really easy for me.

Here's a good article from the washington post that proves that I'm not just of my frikkin' mind.

A few quotes:

"he study of more than 50,000 U.S. nurses found that those who drank just one serving of soda or fruit punch a day tended to gain much more weight than those who drank less than one a month, and had more than an 80 percent increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. The risk pertained to drinks sweetened with either sugar or high-fructose corn syrup."

How much weight gain you ask?

"Data collected from 51,603 women over an average of four years found that the women who gained the most weight were those who increased their consumption of non-diet drinks from one or fewer per week to one or more per day, the researchers found. Such women gained an average of 10.3 pounds, compared with an average of slightly less than three pounds for those who consumed one drink or less per week."

And the quote which explains why I even give a shit:

"The message is: Anyone who cares about their health or the health of their family would not consume these beverages,"

That doesn't even mention that sprite has more sugar than all the other soft drinks(38 grams per 12 oz...about 10 packets of sugar). I'm also not sure if it mentions that the particular kind of sugar used in soft drinks doesn't even get turned in to energy...only fat.

I'm not even really that severe about it. I just want to see her drop from one or more a day to a few a week. It can be gradual too. Like only one a day or less for a month, and then 6 a week or less for a month. That's all. Really. Is that too much to ask?

I hate always feeling like the bad guy. People only want you to care when someone else hurt them, they never want you to care when they are hurting themselves.