Having Problems Losing Weight? Drop the Diet Soda...

Are you a big diet cola drinker? Having problems losing weight? I know some people who pound down 6- 8 cans of diet cola daily to get their caffeine rush during the day. Since it's calorie free, this should be no problem, right? Well, not according to recent findings. Although there has been no confirmation that artificial sweeteners have inherently negative health effects, some researchers believe that the body is tricked into releasing insulin due to it's conditioning towards sweetness.

Basically, this means that your body thinks you're ingesting sugar and releases insulin in response. As you know, insulin is released into the bloodstream to process glucose from the food you eat. It is involved in some very crucial actions in the body. However, as anything else, too much is too much. And too much (chronically raised levels) insulin can cause some serious problems such as diabetes, high triglyceride levels, and high blood pressure.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that insulin is a storage hormone and when it is chronically raised, it makes packing on weight easy and burning body fat as fuel damn near impossible.

So what do you do? Try gradually switching over to water or green tea. Or, go with my favorite which is seltzer with a squeeze of lemon or lime. Watch out for those restaurant lemons though, as you don't know how they've been handled. (Watch the video below if you haven't seen the study)