My reasons are that I drink at least one diet soda a day and I’ve always heard there are some health effects, although I can never get to real solid science that seems to totally pin this down.

I’ve also liked the fact that diet sodas allowed me to substitute one thing for another harmful thing, i.e. a soda with NO sugar for regular sodas with way too much sugar.  The substitution technique is always a good way to make incremental improvements in your life and/or break an existing bad habit.

But when I read about artificial sweeteners I see shocking claims that they cause anything from headaches to various neuropsychiatric disorders, including panic attacks, mood changes, visual hallucinations, manic episodes, and isolated dizziness. Other artificial sweeteners are said to be related to increased cancer risk and heart disease.

Okay, so that doesn’t sound so good, but when I read on, I see phrases like, “anecdotal evidence suggests.”  See what I mean.  That’s not hard science.  After all, anecdotal evidence is all we have for UFO’s as well, although there seems to be about one hundred sightings a year by airline pilots – individuals I would consider pretty credible witnesses.

Or maybe the pilots were all drinking diet sodas and the artificial sweeteners were causing said visual hallucinations.  Hmmm … this may be worth further research.

But that aside for the moment, a new report has just been released stating that diet sodas are linked to an increased risk of stroke.  This comes after the results of a nine-year study of 2500 people over the age of 40 who consumed one or more diet sodas per day.  Hmmm … that’s me – over forty and consuming at least one or more sodas a day.

But the culprit in this study is sodium intake, not artificial sweeteners.  So now I have two things to worry about, apparently.

Reading through the articles further, I come to the same caveats, ifs, buts’ and whatevers when they say “it’s important to note that the leaders of these studies acknowledge the need for more research before drawing any conclusions on the effects of diet soda on human health.”

Just great.  And I might say, not definitive or particularly actionable.  The conclusion is that for the time being, cutting back on sodas is probably not a bad idea anyway.

Okay, somewhat actionable, but it would be nice to get a solid answer on this someday.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll cut out diet sodas for a while.  But I’ll need to find a substitute, and I’m not sure what that is, really.

What do you think about the health effects of diet sodas?  And if you have cut them out, what have you substituted?

Have a healthy, bubble-free day – J. Daniel

But that’s not why I’m writing about her.  Personally, if I had to sing the national anthem in front of millions, I’d be a basket case.  Actually, if someone asked me my name in that situation, my answer most probably would be wrong, and most definitely off key.

So I’ll leave it to others to express an opinion about that.

But what always interests me about national stars is their diet and exercise.  They keep themselves in such great shape, and Christina is no exception.

So I always wonder how they do it.

From some of my research, it seems Christine is oriented toward the carbohydrate counting diet as opposed to the calorie counting diet.  I gather this when she says, “I make healthy choices when I can, because it’s very important for me to have moments where I can let go, have a great dinner and not care so much about the carbs.”  So this puts her on a similar diet to Crystal Harris — 24 year old former Playboy Playmate recently engaged to Hugh Hefner (see Crystal Harris Diet vs. The Twinkie Diet).

To the other important side of fitness, her exercise regimen is more the structured, pretty hard workout routine with a trainer.  Its 90 minutes, five days a week.

Whew!

That’s pretty dedicated.  And Christine isn’t totally enamored with it as she does it.  But she points out how good she feels afterward.  And, well, the results are there to show for all of her hard work.

Contrast this to Natalie Portman and Bo Derek, who seem to have a looser style of exercise by trying to work more activity that they like into their daily routine.

Back to Christina’s diet – she does cheat on it.  While her diet is primarily low carb (diet consists of nothing but protein, vegetables and whole grains six for six days a week) she eats off-diet one day a week, i.e. “think chili cheese fries.”

This is not unusual for low carb dieters, and I believe it’s quite healthy.  At least one day a week you should get a craving or two out of the way.  It helps you sustain your diet in a couple of ways.  First, the obvious, which is you took care of a craving so you are never permanently deprived.  And second, you realize a few hours later or the next day how bad that food makes you feel.  Not bad, really, maybe that is too strong of a word.  But sluggish and not so alert or energetic.

While I am not pushing any particular diet here, I think everyone should try the low carb thing for a few days, and contrast how they feel after they go back off of it.  You might notice the sluggish effects I just mentioned.  Or then again, you might not – in which case the limited calorie diet may be just right for you, or the vegan diet.

We are all different, and the diet that works for us is too.

So have a great day, regardless of the diet you are on, or not – J. Daniel

I checked out some of her photos, and, well, yes, she has held up remarkably well.

I’m always curious about the diet and exercise of these stars, because fitness and beauty is the key hallmark of their trade.  I found out two things about Bo.

The first is that she is on a vegetarian diet.  I’m beginning to think there is something to this.  You’ll recall in an earlier post that the actress  Natalie Portman was also a vegan – one of the variations of a vegetarian diet.

Bo Derek and Natalie Portman also have a similarity in their exercise plans.  Rather than doing regimented workouts, they both integrate more physical activity into their daily lives.  In Bo’s case, this is rather colorful, in that she says she does much of the physical activity on her ten acre horse ranch, and that nothing is quite as physically invigorating as shoveling horse manure.

A bit comical perhaps, but I think by just leading an active lifestyle doing things they love – in Bo’s case, taking care of her horses – it gives them the discipline to exercise in a way that doesn’t seem like exercise.

We can all take a lesson from that.  Walk more, take the stairs, all these things are quite possible, even for those of us with office jobs.

And the vegetarian diet?  I don’t think it’s necessary to go totally meat free, but eating much more fruits and vegetables, and less meat, can’t possibly do any harm and certainly much good.  This also has the benefit of reducing our intake of the many biotics we may be ingesting from the meat supply in our country.

That said, I intend to walk even more, and add more vegetables, including raw ones, to my diet.

So what do you think.  Would making these simple modifications help you too?  They certainly seem to work well for Bo and Natalie.

Have a healthy day – J. Daniel

I always have two central questions in this area.  They are 1) what is her diet and 2) what is her exercise regimen.

It turns out that Natalie is on a vegetarian diet.  She started gradually y eliminating meat from her diet and then gradual ally eliminating fish, cheese and milk.  Note there are varying degrees of Veganism and her diet approaches a Vegan diet which is eating only plant based foods.

So, to stay on this diet, she can eat organic vegetables, fruits, nuts, soy products, legumes, vegan soups, lentils or raw foods.  Also recommended is to seek out interesting restaurants or cookbooks to prevent boredom on this limited diet.

Natalie also combines this diet with portion control, another form of diet we wrote about in Crystal Harris vs. The Twinkie Diet in a past post.

So what are the advantages of her diet?  Well, for starters, there’s no arguing with her results.  And certainly, she eats plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, which is always a good thing.  She doesn’t have to worry about accumulating antibiotics and hormones that seem to be put in many farmed animals and eventually end up in our bodies.  And she gets a mental satisfaction from knowing that no possible cruelty to animals was involved into her food source.

There can be disadvantages to the Vegan diet.  The most obvious is the limited food choices it imposes.  Ad vegans have to plan their meals carefully to assure they get all the vitamins and minerals required for good health.  Some nutrients vegans need to be careful to get adequate amounts of are Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B-12, calcium and iron, among others.  But this can be done through adequate meal planning and is not a given just because meat has been eliminated from the diet.

Natalie’s exercise ideas are similar to those I favor in that she works them in to her daily regimen.  You can exercise like Natalie by simply increasing the activities in your daily life.  Much of her exercise seems to be walking, one that I consider to be the ultimate, easy to do exercise.  You can walk on your work breaks, do errands on foot where possible, park further for the store to walk more, take the stairs when possible, and if the weather is bad, use a treadmill.

Natalie also does Yoga, something I have been interested in for some time.

So there are the highlights of how Natalie keeps so fit and trim.  She stays active and walks for exercise.  She is primarily on a vegan diet, with some use of a portion control diet, and no mention of a low carb diet.

Like all diet and exercise programs, you don’t have to do everything all at once.  Just pick a couple of the ideas you think you can do and try them.  If that works, pick a couple more.

Diet is a personal thing for all of us and over time you will be able to custom tailor the one that works for you.

Good luck and have a nice day – J. Daniel

Shown above is a Twinkie like snack that will illustrate one type of effective diet.  Illustrating the other type of diet will be Crystal Harris, the 24 year old former Playboy Playmate who just became engaged to 84 year old Hugh Hefner.  You can see pictures of her and Hugh (G-rated) in a link below the article.

So what two types of diets am I talking about?

I call them the carbohydrate diet (Crystal Harris) and the calorie diet (Twinkies).  Both are effective.  Like Crystal Harris, I’ve had more success with the carbohydrate diet, but I have a number of friends who do well and maintain a nice shape with the calorie diet.

In the carbohydrate diet, you count carbohydrates.  This means you stay away from high glycemic carbohydrates like potatoes, bread, etc., and eat more low glycemic carbohydrates like high fiber vegetables (broccoli, spinach, green beans, etc.) and you eat protein like turkey, fish, chicken and some other meats.

In a recent interview, Crystal Harris was ask if she diets.  Her answer was a dead giveaway to a carbohydrate oriented diet.  She said, “I stay away from carbs as much as I can and I try to not eat pasta or potatoes. If I eat that stuff, it shows right away. I like ice cream though, and chocolate.”

Okay, so we’ll ignore the ice creme comment, and chocolate — well that’s an entirely different God Like food group that could be the subject of a long discussion – so we’ll ignore that as well.

The advantage of the carbohydrate diet, and why it appeals to me, is that you never need to be hungry.  Many of the foods on the diet have almost unlimited portions.  For example, you could probably eat your weight in broccoli and still lose weight (some folks might wonder why anyone would actually want to eat their weight in broccoli).

The disadvantage is you eliminate, or restrict, the types of foods you eat.

In the Twinkie diet (calorie diet) you don’t restrict anything from your diet but you very carefully watch how many calories you consume per day.  So the disadvantage is you may be a bit hungry at the beginning of the diet, but the advantage is you don’t cut out any of your favorite foods.

There’s a reason why I call this the Twinkie diet.  Twinkies can be used to prove that strictly counting calories works.  Ignoring the food quality issue, you CAN LOSE WEIGHT by eating only Twinkies (and similar snacks) if you keep your calories in line.  This was proven by college professor Mark Haub in 2010.  His point was that “in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food.”  Click here to see the Twinkie article.

Mark lost 27 pounds in 2 months by only eating Twinkies, Oreos and Doritos.

Now I don’t recomend this, but it proves that the calorie conting diet works.

The debate between the two goes on — but I think both are fine, and it’s nice we have a choice.

Finally, to prove the carbohydrate diet is extremely effective as well, I lost 30 pounds in 6 months using it.  I record my weight and per cent body fat every day (interesting note – one of my favorite authors, Ernest Hemingway, used to write his weight on the bathroom wall every day — I don’t do the bathroom wall thing — paper works fine).

If you look at my chart I kept below, you will be convinced the carbohydrate diet works as well.  Now, all I have to do is get back on it more religiously (chuckle).  If you want to read an excellent book on the subject, I suggest The Perricone Prescription.  This is what I used to lose the weight.  You will find it interesting.

One final point — I did this with the simplest exercise plan you can imagine.  I got the idea from Covert Bailey’s Fit or Fat series of books and PBS broadcasting.  But that’s the subject of another post.

So which diet do you prefer — and why. Or are you considering going on a total Twinkie cup cakes diet now — IMPRESSIVE.  To leave a comment just click on the title of this post and leave your thoughts in the comment box that will appear below.

Finally, to wrap up, here’s the link to Crystal Harris.  And if you get past that, my dramatic weight loss chart is below. I’ll bet a certain 50% of you don’t get that far (chuckle).

Wishing you the best (and if you are resolving to diet — the slimmest) New Year in 2011 – J. Daniel