LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) -- Both Kentucky and Indiana made the top ten in a list of states that drink the most soda and sugary drinks. Kentucky was 5, and Indiana 8. Soft drinks are considered a major contributor to obesity and even diabetes.
You can view the entire list here.
“Anybody who has a lot of sugary drinks, you’re already consuming way too many calories," explained Dietitian Maji Koetter-Ali, with Norton Healthcare Weight Management.
She said there's a new guideline that recommends no more than 10 percent of the calories you get each day should come from added sugar, and just one soda could be enough to make you hit that mark.
“Anybody who has a lot of sugary drinks, you’re already consuming way too many calories," Koetter-Ali said.
That means you're not leaving any room for sugar that's already in your food.
“Typically, if I ask my patients to just cut out soda’s or cut out sweet tea from their diet alone, it’s amazing how many pounds they will lose in one week just from that one change,” she said.
You don't just have to be careful with soda, but any sugary drink.
“The reason you’re drinking something is to stay hydrated. You don't want an alternative or, or a soda, or whatever it is, trump how much water you’re actually drinking during the day. It’s really, really important to actually drink water,” Koetter-Ali said.
It all comes down to reading the label, to know what you're putting in your body.
“I always just look at the front quickly. I don’t put too much thought into what’s on the front, just because there’s no rules or regulations as to what’s on the front of a food label. But the most important this is what’s on the back," Koetter-Ali said. "The nutrition facts label has to be accurate, it has to be on every food label.”
And it's not just sugar in soft drinks.
"People don’t realize, there’s sugar added to everything," explained the dietitian. “The best thing you can do: read your labels, be aware of what you’re putting into your body.”
She says you also have to look at nutritional value as a whole. She'd rather you have a yogurt with sugar, than a soda, because there are other things in yogurt that are good for you.
Koetter-Ali says if you want to drink something other than plain water you can infuse it with fruit to get some more flavor. There are also a lot of flavored waters and additives you can put in your water, a lot of those do have artificial sweeteners though. She says if you're OK with that those can be a good option. If not, there are a lot of different seltzer waters out there that are flavored with fruit oils, but aren't sweetened.