MM221 - Diet Soda and the Lies We Tell Ourselves

One of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is that “diet” soda is better than regular pop. If you were to do some research, talk with a doctor or dietician, you would find out that the substitute chemicals in diet soda are bad or worse than those in normal pop. Why do we accept lies from ourselves?

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♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whenever it happens to be that you are partaking in the show. Welcome to Morning Mindset podcast, and I'm assuming that many of you if you've been listening to us for a while you make this a part of your daily routine and that's fantastic. I'm glad that you're doing that. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, take a moment and absorb what I'm about to drop into your ear holes.
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Alright, many of you, if you saw the title if you read the title of today's episode, may have laughed out loud. If you're like me when you were a teenager at one point in time, you had a job at a fast food restaurant. I think probably the majority of teenagers, at least 50% or more of American teenagers, at some point in time will get a job at a fast food joint. It's an entry-level job, it's the first job, it's an easy job for a teenager. They just have to show up and do what they're told.
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They don't really have to think but it teaches them responsibility all that good jazz, and I was no different at one point in time when I was at when I was a teenager like high school age. I got a job working at a Hardee's restaurant. Yes, the Hardys restaurant and that's when I encountered the diet soda phenomenon. People would walk up to the register and they would and they'd be obviously a large individual. A large man or a large woman, and I don't mean like Andre the Giant, large I mean like.
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They would order, like at Hardee's, they would order a large roast beef with cheddar, and a large curly fry, and then they would say and "Do you have Diet Coke or Diet Sprite or Diet this?" or what have you, and we all laugh because we know that brothers and sisters, the problem is not the soda. Okay, I'm going to Burger King and I'm gonna order a Whopper, a large fry, onion rings, an apple pie, and oh, do you have Diet Pepsi? We laugh at it, but I was sitting actually at a restaurant the other day, and I listen to someone order and they said: "What diet drinks do you have?"
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If you are friends with or if you know a doctor, a general practitioner, or if you know anyone who is a nutritionist, and actually I do I know a lot of those people. I know general practitioner doctors and I know dietitians and nutritionists and so, if you were to ask them to down with them about diet soda, they will tell you that the chemical substitutes in diet soda are as bad or worse and in most cases, they're worse than a normal pop.
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Yes, I just did the Michigan reference to soda, I said pop. So, why do we do that? Is there anyone out there are there really Americans out there today that believe in their heart of hearts, that diet soda is good for you, are better than regular soda and you know, certainly aren't harmful. I mean it has the word Diet in it, has to be good for you. Are there people out there, adult humans that actually believe that? Or is diet soda, just one of the many lies that we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better?
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In the case, in the scenario that I listed before, and you may have been one of those people you're like, "Oh, I'm going to have, you know, a biggie size fry & a biggie size, you know. I'm going to go to Wendy's I'm gonna order a triple with cheese, but I'm gonna order a Diet Coke and that evens it out that cancels it out, that makes it okay. Do we really believe that in our heart of hearts or are these just lies that we tell ourselves?
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How often do we tell ourselves lies, or do we accept the lies from ourselves just to make us feel better? In that scenario, we all know that the soda is not the problem. If you're going into restaurants ordering large curly fries and you know, Big Macs and Whoppers and all these things that it's not the pop that's the problem. We know that, but it's the lie that we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. It's a brand new year, some of you may have made resolutions which are what?
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Promises that you make to yourself. You may have goals in mind, you may want to challenge yourself. If you're going to challenge yourself, you're going to make resolutions, if you're going to set goals, one of the biggest things that you need to do is, to be honest with yourself, and that's hard to do because there are so many excuses. You see, diet soda is a ready-made excuse.
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It's a ready-made excuse. It makes you feel good. It is a product that was designed to make you feel good about doing bad. Like doing bad come on Paul, and I'm not evil. I'm not a bad person because I drink diet soda. No, you're not. But we can we all be honest with ourselves? Diet soda is not good for you, if you really wanted to do something that was good for you, you would order food and then order a glass of water or a bottle of water and that would indeed be good for you.
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But we don't do that do we know many of us don't why well because it's just diet. What does that other drink, it's called Vitamin Water. It sounds like it's super healthy, but if you read the ingredients, you might as well drink a Coke or a Mountain Dew for what you're going to do. There sports drinks are filled with sugar and sugar substitutes, but it's a sports drink, right? So it has to be good for you. These are lies that we tell ourselves because it makes us feel good because it's easy to accept.
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It's hard to be honest with yourself. It's hard to look in the mirror and say you know what you're better than this. You can work harder. You should work harder, but you're not doing it. Because of lazy self, the lazy brain doesn't want to hear that lazy brain wants to drink diet soda. Because it has the word diet in it. That's what lazy brain wants lazy brain wants to how many of you have the I'm going to lose weight diet and I'm going to lose weight by eating. Well, I usually have two cookies with my coffee in the morning, but I'm just going to have one cookie today and that's going to that's going to help me lose 25lb by having one less cookie a day.
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Brothers and sisters, eating one less cookie a day is not going to help you lose 25 or 30lb. If you want to seek Improvement in your life, if you want to move forward what and whatever it is your career field your you with your family experience or what have you. You got to be honest with yourself. You need to stop accepting lies from yourself lies like diet soda. There are other ones too, but you know what I'm talking about.
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Alright, if you want to be honest with yourself, stop drinking diet soda, it is terrible for you. If you'll take one piece of nutritional or diet advice from me. Stop drinking that poison, throw it in the garbage. If it's in your refrigerator, open it up pour it down the sink burn the bottles, burn the cans, destroy them, drink water. You'll feel better, I guarantee it. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I am your host Paul Markel and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.