Your diet is making you fat, or didn't you know?

I hate refined sugar. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the worst things you can put into your body. Before you start arguing, put down that Snickers and read William Dufty's book, The Sugar Blues - it's just over 20 years old, but the facts haven't changed.

Anyways, it's virtually impossible to cut sugar out of my diet, especially with a Cheesecake Factory right down the street, but I do try to get rid of it as much as possible.

One of the main things I try to do to cut out sugar is to drink diet soda. I love the stuff and, while I'm lately particularly attached to Diet Pepsi, I can drink pretty much anything. It took a while for my taste buds to adjust to the Splenda or Aspartame or whatever carcinogen the beverage peeps put into their mixes that week. I haven't had a sugared soda in years.

I used to be pretty addicted, actually. At one point, about five years ago, I drank a six-pack a day of Diet Coke. We all know too much of anything is a bad thing - my skin broke out in awful acne, my hands shook all the time and would fall asleep each night to sweet sounds of grinding teeth.

Well, check out this story from ABC News and the accompanying video. Turns out diet soda can, in addition to give you zits, also make you fat. Drinking anything sweet, whether it's diet or not, can trigger your brain into starting your metabolism into "burn sugar into energy" mode. This would be a good thing, except that if your brain does this and there's no actual sugar to burn, it gets confused and starts to shut down that reaction. So, when you actually have sugar to eat, it doesn't get burned up.

What does undigested sugar turn into when it's in your body? Fat, of course. Good times!

Looks like I'll be sticking with my latest obsession - sparkling water. I've been drinking the stuff non-stop for months. It's fun... the bubbly sensation is great, water rehydrates and helps loosen muscles and relieves headaches, plus, you can add a slice of lime and pretend you're drinking at work. Or, heck, every now and then, go for the real thing and slip in some gin and no one's the wiser. At least there's no sugar in there, right?

Whoever thought drinking through the day would actually be healthy?

You know you love my logic.