Nothing good happens when you drink 10 Cokes daily for 30 days

After reading that Jude Law drank drank 10 Cokes a day to gain weight for a role, George Prior got an idea.

What if he did the same, for 10 days? What would happen to his body? Well, not such good things, according to a story on Yahoo! about the 50-year-old Prior. In that story, Prior points out that amount of sugar isn’t all that far off from what the average American takes in daily. That’s stretching it a bit, given the numbers in the story: the USDA says Americans take in about 194 grams of sugar a day; Prior — who is based in Los Angeles and normally follows a Paleo-ish diet — took in 390 grams of sugar each of the 30 days from the added Coca-Cola. Oh, and the Recommended Daily Allowance of sugar: 36 grams for men, 24 for women. (Right now quit oogling the amount of sugar Prior was drinking and look at what your average American is taking in each day, 194 grams. Could that be you? Have you ever kept track? But I digress.)

That extra 1,400 calories a day started Prior, on the path to weight gain pretty quickly. At the end of it all his weight went from 168 pounds to 192. (With two days to go, he went up another two pounds, according to his blog. Two days!) Fifteen days into it his body fat, which had been at 8 percent at the start, was at 14 percent, according to the Yahoo! article.

By the end, his body fat was at 16 percent, a 65 percent increase, the story says. He also talks about how all that sugar made him feel so sluggish. On his blog (check out his website; he’s a good writer, very funny), he said it was two days after quitting his personal challenge that he felt the worst. Hmm, can you say, withdrawal? (And you thought that only happened to people trying to kick smoking or drugs. But again, I digress.)

Here though, is one of the most important things Prior points out. Yes, you have a good chance of losing weight if you stop drinking sugar, err, soda. But — and this is very important — that will not happen, Prior tells his readers, if you do what so many have been told is the “right thing,” replace that soda with “healthier options, like juices, fruit smoothies, sports drinks, and fruit.” Check out Prior’s chart of sugar in other drinks.

Prior is so right; stop drinking soda (diet too; here’s something I wrote about that). And then drink water, plain coffee, plain tea. I admit, liking soda as I do, it wasn’t that easy at first (I stopped for a few months, started up again in summer and then quit once more), but the more I do it, the easier it gets.

Give it a try.