I'm never drinking soda ever again.

...I think we all know that is a total lie.

HOWEVER, I do consider myself more informed about what soda really is and I will be making much smarter choices when it comes to what I drink. People count calories and watch what they eat, but rarely stop to think about what they're drinking. That dark period in my life has ended.

I watched the documentary Hungry for Change last week. I do admit that its very preachy and if you don't already have some sort of understanding about health and nutrition, it might be difficult to discern fact from flare. I took a lot of the commentaries and opinions with a grain of salt, but the facts they offered about what is really in a can of soda or a sports drink (and other popularly ingested foods and beverages) were really terrifying. Some of the science seemed to make sense and match up with other things I had heard or read.

For example, they made a seemingly valid point about the body's inability to recognize when a person is trying to lose weight. They said that a lot of packaged foods have toxins (and take that term loosely, because they mean 'things that are generally harmful to the body'). If you continue ingesting those toxins, even though you're on a regime of diet and exercise, your body doesn't recognize that you're trying to rid it of those toxins, because as soon as you flush them out, they're immediately replaced.

What I took from that segment was this: If I want to cut the fat, I need to take a few days and "eat clean." Water, tea, coffee, juices made by me, and meals heavy in non-processed foods (going light on the meats). This will tell my body "ok, I'm ready to get rid of this shitty extra flub." Then I can start to work whatever my health objective is. And, this is my own thought here, but it seems like maybe after the few days of eating clean and telling my body I want those toxins out, if I DO ingest them (minimally) later on, my body will know to deal with them immediately. This is ASSUMING I'm generally sticking with my healthy eating patterns.

From now on, I'm going to try to NOT consume packaged products that have more than 5-8 ingredients OR have ingredients I don't recognize. I would guess that if it has a sciency name, then its probably not something I should be eating.

I'm really trying to kick-start healthier eating choices. I realize that a lot of food documentaries are meant to scare you; but I'm not too big of a sucker. I'm pretty confident I can separate out the whats true and whats opinion or fake science. Also, not all of the recommendations are things I know I would be able to commit to. I'm not going to completely change the way I live and eat just because some docu tells me to. I'm going to fiddle around a little bit, take recommendations on what to eat (and more importantly, what NOT to eat), and make decisions based on what makes my body feel the best.