Pictured above is what an AVERAGE American consumes in sugar per year. If you were to count the number of 5 lb. bags visible you would count 32. According to recent research, the average American consumes 160 lbs. of sugar a year. Now let's put this into perspective.

One 8 oz. can of Pepsi has 28 grams of carbs and 28 grams of those carbs are sugar. So in order to find out how many teaspoons of anything is in a food, or in this case a beverage, then know 1 teaspoon of the same sugar found in those bags above has 4 grams of carbs. The simple math in this exercise would look like this: 28 grams of carbs (sugar) divided by 4 grams of carbs (1 teaspoon of sugar) equals 7 teaspoons of sugar in one 8 ounce can.

Now, who do you see drinking 8 ounce cans!? It's always 16 - 20 ounce bottles. In the "typical" American's case - 52 to 66 grams of sugar carbs are in one drink (13 - 16.5 teaspoons of sugar). To break this down even further, and keep in mind this is only from 1 pop, there are 11 1/4 cups in a 5 pound bag of sugar.

To find out the REAL ugliness of this - there are 16 tablespoons in one cup and 3 teaspoons in 1 tablespoon. Drum roll please....................there are 48 teaspoons in 1 cup.

The math looks like the following:
11.25 cups per 5 lb bag of sugar
48 teaspoons in 1 cup
(48 X 11.25) = 540 teaspoons in one 5 pound bag of sugar

So if you had 1 pop a day then my annual numbers would look like this:
16 ounce bottles - 13 teaspoons of sugar times 365 days equals 4645 teaspoons of sugar
20 ounce bottles - 16.5 teaspoons of sugar times 365 days equals 6022.5 teaspoons of sugar

Hold on because the beating has only begun........

There are 15 calories in a teaspoon of sugar. Typically, 3800 calories will make up 1 pound of fat. I'll continue with the 16 and 20 ounce scenarios.

16 ounces - 4645 teaspoons x 15 calories per teaspoon = 69,675 calories for the year (18.34 lbs of fat added to your frame)
20 ounces - 6022.5 teaspoons x 15 calories per teaspoon = 90,337.5 calories for the year (23.77 lbs. of fat added to your frame)

The final number:
16 ounces of pop = 8.6 bags of sugar a year
20 ounces of pop = 11.15 bags of sugar a year

I would like to personally thank all the soda manufacturers out there for helping us with our blood sugar problems. Because of you the 54 or so million pre-diabetics in this country will help guarantee the drug companies stay in business down the road. And just like the idiots on the streets insure there will always be a need for Law Enforcement, scenarios like this will ensure fit-pros like myself will always have people to help. And I didn't say that with a smile on my face!

Stay tuned for the next post when I dive into the heart and what all this is doing to us as a human race.

How Come You Are Not Where You Want To Be?

I spend a lot of my time reading books on making me better at what I do. To say my library has become extensive over the last year would be a vast understatement. Of all the books I've read and in the process of reading, "The Slight Edge" makes more sense than most of the others. And the more I get into this book the more I realize it's the way I've lived and approached life - more so during my entrepreneurship, but the "way" nonetheless.

What really hit the nail on the head was the following:

"The Power of Compounding Effort"

Picture a huge, heavy flywheel- a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about thirty feet in diameter, two feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and for as long as possible.

Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete on entire turn.

You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move it round a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns...four...five...six...the flywheel builds up speed...seven...eight...you keep pushing...nine...ten...it builds momentum...eleven...twelve...moving faster with each turn...twenty...thirty...fifty...a hundred.

Then at some point--breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn...whoosh! ... its own heavy weight working for you. You're pushing no harder than the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum.

Now suppose someone came along and asked, What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?"

You wouldn't be able to answer; it's a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was ALL of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave---no matter how large----reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel."

That analogy actually came from Jim Collins, "Good To Great" book, and was used in this book.

As I sit here and look over how my life has played out, I'm amazed at how this is the way I've always done things. Never intentionally until now, but there was always that trait in my DNA that would not allow me to fall for the "Magic Bullet".

For this, I have a smile on my face knowing I am on the right path and have been blessed with the opportunity to teach others as well.