Rick's HFCS Diet

so after hearing so much bad buzz about high fructose corn syrup over the last few months and seeing rick's successful shedding by giving up cokes, i've tried myself to avoid HFCS as best as i can.

it's actually more difficult than i had originally thought, because so many things these days seem to have it. i'm not exactly the type to go scouring through food labels looking for ingredients or calorie counts or anything so sometimes i won't even realize something has HFCS till i stop and think to look. i was surprised that stuff like cans of country time lemonade and a V8 smoothie bottle had it. it almost seems like you have to find something that's specifically marked as healthier (such as including splenda) to avoid it.

i don't wanna act like it makes the biggest difference in the world, but i think avoiding HFCS is something that's relatively manageable for me. i can't pretend like i have a "weight problem" so i'm not looking to really diet hardcore or start massively portion controlling or anything like that. but i had gotten to a point where i was usually drinking one 20oz. coke at work, a 12oz. can with dinner and another 12oz. can before midnight everyday. that's 44oz. of coke a day, which is obviously waaay too much. i started to get better by subbing in other drinks like juices and sugar-free lemonades instead of the cokes, as well as trying and liking coke zero.

with the exception of occasionally getting "real" cokes at restaurants, i've largely stopped drinking real soda with HFCS. when i can find coke zero (which can be dodgy at work) i always go for that. i'd say at this point it tastes about 90% as good as coke, and still has caffeine, so it works for me. i've basically found that if i avoid real cokes for several days, i'll generally be 4-5 pounds lighter on the scale, as long as i'm doing cardio a few times a week. that basically puts me at my goal weight of 195, and i've even been a few pounds below that a bit.

in truth you kinda never want to achieve your goal, because then you don't have a goal left. as long as i'm hovering around 195 i guess i kinda don't care that much how things go. i've actually done a great job at cutting way back on fast food, although i can't really say it's dropped much off of me. i think the only realistic way i'm gonna flirt with maybe 190 is to work out more, but 4 times a week is realistically the best i can't hope for, which also isn't gonna gain me much.

so i don't really know what my new year's resolution's gonna be, at least food-wise. but i guess that can't be too bad a predicament, hey?

--j