Yeah, the Mayo Clinic link basically agrees with that:
But I haven’t read anywhere that 3 liters for adult males is excessive.
Thanks for the lecture on pleasure and common sense. I bow to your superior knowledge and experience about the way the world works.
I engage in risky pleasurable activities, believe it or not. The other day I went on a eight-mile walk in 90-degree heat. Totally unnecessary but wonderfully pleasurable. I could have gotten hit by a car or fallen out due to heat stroke. I could have been seized by stomach cramps or been shot in a drive-by. I could have tripped and sprained my ankle. Or been caught in a heavy storm and struck by lightning. I knew all of these things before leaving the house, but I did it anyway on the off-chance that I’d come back safely.
But you know what? If someone ever asks me if urban hiking is safe, I would tell them the truth: As with anything, it has associated risks–some known and some unknown. Even barring all the accidents that have a medium probability of occurring, being outdoors in a polluted environment, especially all day and in hot weather, is not frankly good for you. So if you don’t want to take a chance of hurting yourself, urban hiking is not good activity. You should probably stay in the basement and play video games or something. But if you accept that there’s a small but significant chance that you will incur harm and try to mitigate for it as best you can, then you’ll enjoy it immensely.
I was once underweight and my doctor forbade me from doing any exercise until I could fatten up. It was hard not to walk to work since it is such an engrained habit, but eventually I got used to it. In fact, I grew to enjoy having the extra time in my schedule. I diverted my pleasure-seeking to other activities. Life is about change and adjusting sometimes. It’s not all about getting about what you want.
If my doctor told me that doing artwork was bad for my health, I would have a lot more difficulty adjusting to this. I probably wouldn’t, to be honest. As long as the doctor’s logic was sound, though, you would never find me bragging about my defiance or telling other people that there’s nothing wrong with staying up all night long, painting. I’m not arrogant enough to believe that just because my gut says something is right, it is right.
When I told my mother about my Sunday hike, she totally went all, “you walk too much!” on me. But you know what? My mother is an obese arthritic woman who has never walked more than a mile in her whole life and can’t stop scarfing down sugar, despite her diabetes. She’s in no position to tell me anything about addiction. We both know this.
I’m addicted to caffeine. I wish I wasn’t.
Sorry. What point were you making?
I don’t know why you think I’m advocating giving up pleasure just because I find drinking 4 cans of Coke Zero excessive. “Everything in moderation” is a wonderful mantra. The problem seems to be that everyone defines “moderation” differently, and I’m simply on the more conservative end than you. Why this seems to elicit defensive hysterical postings from you, I don’t understand. But I do understand I’m not housebound and having parents care for me, despite having the capacity to do so myself. Perhaps you need to consider that you put entirely way too much importance on maintaining a constant stream of short-term pleasures and start thinking about living your life to the fullest.
On reflection, daily gym visits knocks the OP’s 2 liters of fluid day up to well within normal ranges. In that case, the answer is that the jury is still out on whether diet sweeteners may be a worse choice than sugars.
There is some evidence that indicates that diet soda may be linked to significantly higher diabetes risk than sugar-sweetened soda.
Unfortunately, the study that I’m thinking of was done on French women whose soda consumption at the time was only around a half-liter per week, which is considerably lower than the three cans a day that the OP drinks. It’s pretty likely that sugared soda is worse for diabetes in that dosage regime.
…however, getting into the habit of regularly consuming sugary and/or acidic drinks is definitely not great for your teeth. As far as better choices, I found a list on this website from an Indiana dental institute. (It’s arranged from low acidity to high acidity.)
Based on this list, it seems like if you can’t bring yourself to switch to water, maybe Diet Barq’s would be a better choice than Diet Coke. (I also note that for both Coke and Pepsi, the sugared version is even more acidic than the diet version, so diet doesn’t seem to be particularly bad here.)
We’ve been eating beef and pork for centuries. Only now are we starting to understand how these foods affect our bodies.
The same with sugar.
I like both meat and sugar and eat both everyday. But I’m not stupid enough to think these things are harmless and that I can eat as much as I want of these things, without suffering any ill effects. Just because both have been around since forever does not equate to understanding. This is common-fucking-sense.
I know that NOT drinking Coke Zero isn’t going to harm him. Not doing something is a pretty good way of protecting yourself against unknown harm.
If you are doing something with unknown risks, then it is not “hollow” to say “we don’t know”. It’s the truth. What’s stupid is saying “We don’t know, so let’s just say it’s safe!” If we don’t know something, we don’t know something. We don’t get to make up the conclusion.
Believe it or not, this is the approach FDA and EPA take with the gazillion synthetic substances being created everyday. A substance is assumed to be safe unless proven otherwise. Guess what substances have been through this wonderful screening process? Heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenols, organophosphates. Radium toothpaste! Every scary toxic substance that everyone now knows is bad was once considered “good”, and sometimes it took a really long time for someone to do something about it.
It hardly needs to be said that American food additive safety requirements have become orders of magnitude more stringent since the pre-WWII days of Radithor. In fact, newer synthetic substances have been much more rigorously tested for safety than traditional staples like sugar, pork and beef, which all fall under the fiat-created category of substances legally “generally recognized as safe”.
You hear that everybody? Don’t eat 4 apples a day, because we just don’t know or possibly understand what the implications might be. Just because apples have been around since forever does not equate to understanding. I mean, it’s just “common-fucking-sense”.
Think those chemicals have been tested?
And thanks for the correction, colander.
My common sense tells me that apples aren’t harmful at 4 a day.
But forty? I don’t need the Surgeon General to tell me this is a problem.
Do you?
In other words, lick your finger, hold it to the wind, and stomp your feet at anyone who disagrees with your gut feelings.
So, you think the foods we eat are classified as industrial chemicals and regulated by the EPA. Gotcha.
I don’t know what you’re saying this in response to. It makes no sense.
Yes, it does. You have no idea what you’re talking about, but giving everyone advice based on nothing more than your gut feeling.
Um…no. Why would you say such a crazy thing?
EPA does regulate chemicals that we ingest through our drinking water. But I double-dare you to compare your state’s water quality standards with the list of industrial chemicals widely used in your state. You may be amazed how much stuff isn’t even tested, let alone regulated.
And industrial chemicals often have a sneaky way of getting into our food supply. If the EPA (or more likely, your local government) falls down on the job, this can result in horrible nastiness getting into your food.
I don’t think you want to tangle with me on this particular subject. But I’m game for it if you are.
My advice is very non-controversial:
“Assume there’s risk and operate accordingly.”
I can’t get behind, “Do what you want unless someone with a title tells you it isn’t safe.” Because that’s the stupid reasoning of a retarded lemming.
So sorry I’m not a retarded lemming.
You are making less sense as this thread progresses. I have no interest in discussing the EPA or industrial chemicals in this thread, which is why it made no sense for you to post to an article on that subject.
Sounds like a regular lemming to me, perhaps even a smart one. Then again, lemmings aren’t known for their intelligence.
Nobody is saying any such thing.
Do you have a problem with “Assume there’s risk and operate accordingly?”
If not, you’ve got your panties in a wad all over nothing.
No. I have more of a problem with:
You’ve also claimed that 4 Coke Zeros is excessive. When asked why, you’ve offered no reasoning other than “because it might be”.
Nice irony.