Buzz Blog Post, #2!

Ok – my first concern was to ask about intake. Simply speaking – what do my test subjects (Daddy and Buddy Buzz) eat or consume on a regular basis?


Daddy has a serious sweet tooth, and his downfall is sugary sweets. That one is pretty obvious – especially with a diabetic concern. The problem in his case was simple sugars – and we’ll get to that soon.

With Buddy Buzz? We’ve got an immediate issue we can address and one that will make a major difference all on its own. Soft drinks.

Now I’m a Southern girl, and I have both a sweet tooth and an adoration of Coca-Cola, Cheerwine, Dr. Pepper – you name it. A significant part of my foodie repertoire involves the use of these little lovelies in recipes or preparations of some kind. Sauces, cakes, pies, candies and especially hams – all use any number and amounts of these Southern specialties and I embrace them whole heartedly. Love ‘em.

I don’t, however, drink them, except on the rarest of occasions. I’ll find a Cheerwine or Dr. Enuf maybe once every six months, and maybe a Coca-Cola once every three months or so. I don’t buy them for the kiddos except for special occasions. If there’s a birthday or an event? Sure – I’ll bring home a 12-pack. But when they’re gone, they’re gone. They are a treat. Honestly this has been a budget consideration as much as a nutrition issue for me – they are expensive, and the same money that will buy the 12-pack will buy 2 gallons of milk. However, I also dimly have recognized that this was a pretty good plan to follow. So when I started talking to Buddy Buzz about his concerns for his weight, one of the things I asked him first was about soft drinks and (as a fellow Southerner) sweet tea. This is what he said:

“Now I drink about 3 or 4 diet cokes a day a large Dr. Pepper or root beer at lunch. In the morning I drink a large coffee with cream and sugar and sometimes another coffee mid-morning but black, no cream or sugar.”

Wow. Ok – here is a great thing! Ok – not that he’s been drinking it – but this is the coolest trick we’re about to pull! We’re going to start dropping his weight immediately – and it’s only going to take one simple change. Yes – coming up we’re going to make more changes – but check this out: 12 ounce (1 can) of a soft drink contains enough sugar to allow someone to gain up to 15 pounds a year without exercise. So if he’s drinking 4-6 soft drinks a day (accounting for the large one at lunch) – he’s got the potential for a 90 pound weight gain in a single year.

90. Pounds. In. One. Year.

Now – Buzz has a physically strenuous job – but think about that fact right there friends and neighbors. Since he does have some exercise in his routine – how about he cuts that calorie load? Soft drinks have no nutritive value whatsoever – they do nothing of benefit for the body, and yet pile on calories that do no good. So let’s consider the effect of dropping them. Let’s say Buddy Buzz drops the soft drinks. Not entirely – I’m not the Dietary Dominatrix. But let’s cut them back from multiples daily to the occasional or as-a-treat type. I’m betting that with making no other changes, and considering his type of work, Buzz can drop a minimum of forty pounds within a year. Period. So – his own weight gain not only stops dead – but the slow and steady weight LOSS will begin.

Big change? Oh yeah. Not just yeah, but hell yeah. I’m not taking his coffee – and I’m especially not taking his cream and sugar from the coffee. (Not yet at least). For one thing – he’s going to have a caffeine addiction issue and there will quite possibly be a caffeine headache when I challenge him to stop the soft drinks as his first move. So I give him permission to have one additional cup with real cream and sugar (not substitutes). Hey – have a LARGE cup. I also give him permission to continue his entire diet the way it’s been. But my first requirement is going to be that he stop the soft drinks. He’ll probably hate me this week, quite possibly for two weeks. That’s a serious lifestyle change.

On the other hand, I think he’s committed. It’s not just looking good for him, it’s about making the change to healthy, which means feeling good. Which means once he’s made the adjustment and he is working it on water, skim milk and a few selected juices then we’re going to make the next change. But this one starts it. Ok – ready? I think Buzz is – let’s root him on!