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I had a friend who was always eating and drinking “diet”, “sugar free”, “fat free”, etc., etc., etc - with everything he consumed, to any extent possible.

He also was always complaining about his weight.

After years of watching this, one evening, after a nice bar-b-que, I watched him wolf down a quart of “fat free”, “sugar free” ice cream, and then listened to his explanation that it was O.K. ‘cause it was “fat free” and “sugar free”.

Oh, and he always complained that he was always hungry.

I finally told him what I thought. I believed he actually consumed way more calories than I did and most likely an awful lot more calories as carbohydrates than I did. But, since so much of his intake was composed of foods made from artificial this and artificial that, with so little actual fat or actual sugar, that his body was starving for real food, and converting his over-abundance of carbs into fat.

I told him that I would bet he would be less hungry and wind up consuming less calories and less carbs if he gave his body real food, including butter and sugar instead of all the “diet” stuff.

We are no longer friends so I don’t know if he took my advice or not.

I think the old adage “all things in moderation accepted” still holds a lot of truth.

I had a friend who was always eating and drinking “diet”, “sugar free”, “fat free”, etc., etc., etc - with everything he consumed, to any extent possible.

I am not a college graduate with a nutritional degree in wheat-germ studies or anything like that, but let me tell you what I think is causing a great deal of the weight/medical problems in America!

The number one failure is the "fat free," "diet" and "sugar free" items that people drink/eat in mass quantities (because they are better - "They are diet.") As you noted to your friend, this greatly increases caloric intake which people just do NOT think about.

The second most common failure is lack of water intake! Water IS the fountain of youth! The more we eat, the more water we should drink! Your body uses water to convert all those calories to energy and body mass! It flushes toxins from the body! Everyone needs to drink 8 to 12 glasses of water a day!

The last item (which is strictly my opinion, but makes sense to me) relates back to the first entry: diet/sugar free foods and drinks. I believe that the rise in Type 2 diabetes is related to the giant rise in diet/sugar free food products: Diet Coke is the number 2 soda on the entire soda market; it sells MORE than regular Pepsi! Now, this might just be a coincidence, since Type 2 Diabetes is more prevalent in obese people, but I think it might be more of a cause than most people (especially companies) want to admit (See tobacco use and lung cancer as it relates to companies admitting product failures) - I'm just saying...