The Energy Drink Scam

Do Energy Drinks Help You, or Can They Actually Make You Fat?
by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-sellers:  The Truth About Six Pack Abs & The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

Today I have a little rant on energy drinks...
I receive a ton of questions about all of these new "energy" drinks that have hit the market over the last few years. They seem to be all the rage, and they promise you the world with outrageous claims of all of the super energy that you are going to have, and how you'll become the best athlete in the world, start lifting cars over your head, and get a perfect body.
So a couple questions arise:
Are these "energy" drinks really any good for you?
Do they actually increase your energy?
Do they really have some sort of magical energy formula?
Will they help you lose weight?
First of all, let's look at what most of these energy drinks are usually made of. Most of them are simply carbonated water loaded with gut-fattening high fructose corn syrup (or other added sugars), caffeine, the amino acid taurine, and some crappy artificially-derived vitamins added for show to trick you into thinking there's something healthy about these concoctions.
Let's start with the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or other syrups and sugars.  Well, here we've got empty calories that will go straight to your belly fat, and that are possibly even WORSE for you than plain old refined sugar (although that's up for debate, but semantics in the big picture).  Some energy drinks use other added sugars instead of HFCS, but it doesn't really matter, because they are all gut-fattening empty calories with no nutritional benefit.
Ok, so you say that they also have low-sugar or sugar-free varieties as an alternative to the sugar-laden energy drinks. Yes, but now you have the problem of the harmful chemicals in the artificial sweeteners which have their own set of health dangers.
Another problem with artificial sweeteners is that there are some research studies that indicate artificial sweetener use leads people to inadvertently consume more calories and gain more weight in the long run... in addition to having a negative hormonal effect in the body.  I won't go into all of the details on that topic because that would fill up an entire discussion by itself.
Just trust me that artificial sweeteners and artificial chemicals in food in general, are ALL bad news for your body!  It's never a good idea to try to "trick" your body with artificial tastes.
What about the caffeine?
Well, first of all, caffeine doesn't in itself provide "energy". Technically, the only substance that actually provides energy is calories.
However, caffeine can be an aid for livening or waking some people up, by means of stimulating the central nervous system.
Instead of caffeine artificially added to some carbonated "energy" drink, I'd rather get my caffeine from a natural source like green, white, or oolong teas (or my new favorite - yerba mate teas), or even a good organic coffee, all of which actually provide very powerful healthy antioxidants too!
Keep in mind though, if you're a regular daily coffee drinker, and drink more than 1 cup of coffee per day, you probably have some level of addiction to caffeine and probably wouldn't receive too much benefit from the caffeine in an energy drink anyway.
Tip:  try to drink more tea and reduce your coffee intake to only ONE cup of coffee per day max to reduce your dependency on caffeine. Keeping total caffeine intake to around 100-150 mg/day max is helpful to prevent adrenal issues and addiction to caffeine.  Most teas contain much less caffeine than coffee, and some teas (such as green, white, and oolong) contain synergistic phytochemicals that work to slow the response of the caffeine that they do contain.  This means you get a milder response from the caffeine in green, oolong, or white teas compared to the harsher jittery response that some people get from too much coffee, or from coffee on an empty stomach.
Now what about that so called magical blend of taurine and B-vitamins that they load into these energy drinks?
Well, big deal...you get taurine in almost any protein source. And the vast majority of those artificially added B-vitamins are simply coming right out into the toilet in your pee. Vitamins are best obtained naturally from a REAL food source, not artificially added to some carbonated drink. Your body just doesn't use fake sources of vitamins as readily as natural sources from real food.
So as you can see, in my opinion, I give all of these energy drinks a big time THUMBS DOWN!  Don't fall for the ridiculous marketing of all of these so-called "energy drinks".
Instead, here's my recipe for my own home-made 
energy drink:
1.  Make a big iced tea mixture using green tea, white tea, and yerba mate tea.  I like to add a little fruit flavor, so I'll use 1 tea bag of a raspberry or blueberry hibiscus tea, and then use 2-3 green and/or white tea bags, and 2-3 yerba mate tea bags, and make a gallon container of iced tea.  I just use a small amount of stevia to lightly sweeten the batch of tea.
2. I buy a container of organic coconut water from a health food store, or buy fresh coconuts to obtain the coconut water from the inside.
3.  For my healthy energy drink, I mix a half of a glass of the white/green/yerba mate iced tea mixture and fill the rest of the glass with the coconut water.
This is actually a delicious and truly healthy energy drink instead of the chemical-laden crappy energy drinks that everybody is getting suckered into buying these days.
The green, white, and yerba mate teas contain a small dose of caffeine along with a diverse mixture of powerful antioxidants and synergistic phytochemicals.  Plus, the coconut water is a rich source of electrolytes and a diversity of vitamins and minerals, including as much potassium as a banana, but with only 1/3 the amount of carbs and calories as a banana.  Coconut water is known to provide a good instant energy source.
So enjoy this natural healthy energy drink, knowing that you're doing your body good instead of filling it with chemicals with normal store-bought energy drinks.


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Drink this 2 hours before bed to sleep better (plus 5 tips for insomnia)

by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of the best seller: The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

I've noticed in my travels and with working with clients that a large majority of people in today's fast-paced stressful world are struggling at least part of the time with falling asleep at night.
Over the years, I've also struggled on occasion with insomnia because of the stress placed on me by running a large publishing business.  And I've researched and learned quite a few tips and tricks over the years to help fight insomnia and fall asleep faster.
Without diving into every single technique I've learned over the years, I'll just touch on a few really simple, but powerful tips, foods, drinks, etc that I think can help you to fall asleep easier and faster too!
Here goes:
1.  The most important sleep tip to start with:
This one isn't a specific food or drink, but rather probably THE most important tip I can give you... if you don't follow this one, your chances of being able to wind down at night and fall asleep fast are unlikely...
You NEED to eliminate use of devices, computers, emails, and any other work related to your job (or other stressful things) at least 3 hours before you plan to go to sleep. Using devices or computers for casual reading at night is fine, but don't do any work that gets your mind overly activated, such as anything dealing with work or other stressful things in life. Also, even for casual reading, it's best to turn off devices at least 1 hour before bed as keeping your eyes focused on the light from devices is one thing that some researchers are saying could interfere with getting quality sleep.
An overly active mind late at night is one of the BIGGEST things keeping many people from falling asleep. As a success-driven entrepreneur myself, I used to work really late at night and then I'd find that my mind was always too active to actually be able to fall asleep, so I'd lay there for hours sometimes until I could get my mind to slow down so I could fall asleep.
This may sound weird, but one trick that's worked for me is to grab a book while I lay in bed on something that I find sort of boring and try to read the book in bed.  Because the topic is "boring" to me personally, it keeps my mind away from things that I find more interesting, and it allows me to fall right to sleep. So for example, if you find health and fitness interesting (I hope you do!), but you find economics boring, try reading an economics book as you lay in bed.  I bet you'll get sleepy and fall asleep much faster than if you laid in bed letting all your thoughts about daily life race through your mind.

2.  No caffeine after mid-day:
You've probably heard this tip many times, so I'll keep this one short... It takes about 6 hours for caffeine to be fully processed and eliminated by your body, so make sure your last caffeinated drink of the day (coffee, black tea, mate, etc) is at LEAST 6 hours or more before your planned bedtime.  And if you've been showing any adrenal fatigue from lab hormone tests, you should also consider reducing your daily caffeine intake if you currently use it.

3.  Tart cherries or tart cherry juice:
Tart cherries (Montmorency) actually contain a natural form of melatonin that can help you to naturally get sleepy and more easily fall asleep.  I've found frozen tart cherries a few times in specialty grocery stores and I use them for a late night smoothie occasionally.
I've also found a tart cherry concentrate in Whole Foods and other health food stores that you can add to a drink or caffeine-free tea at night to help get you that low dose natural melatonin.  I use 1 spoonful of this tart cherry concentrate in a cup of chamomile or mint tea late at night.  This helps immensely for calming down and falling asleep at night.
A side benefit is that tart cherry also contains powerful antioxidants that fight joint pain, gout, and other inflammation related problems.

4.  DON'T overdose on melatonin supplements (most contain TOO MUCH)
Did you know that MOST people overdose on melatonin supplements.  Most melatonin supplements come in either 3 mg or even 5 mg doses.  However, according to some researchers, anything more than 1 mg might be too high of a dose, which can disrupt your sleep cycle the following day, making it hard to wake up in the morning, and harder to fall asleep the following night, disrupting your overall sleep cycle.
The proper dose seems to be something less than 1 mg from most experts on this topic (this was even discussed on the Dr Oz show too), which is why I choose to NEVER use melatonin supplements, and only get the small natural quantities found in tart cherries or tart cherry juice.

5.  Night time teas:
Try "night time teas" that have relaxing qualities such as chamomile tea, mint tea, lemongrass tea, or all of them mixed.  A side benefit of chamomile tea, and another reason that I try to include it in my weekly night tea repertoire is that chamomile tea contains unique phytonutrients that can help fight estrogenic overload from all of the xenoestrogens that we are exposed to from chemicals, pesticides, etc in today's chemical laden world.
Also remember that you can add a spoonful of the tart cherry concentrate and you'll get a double-whammy of sleep aid!  This works well about 1-2 hours before bedtime to help your body and mind relax.
One more tip...
If you still have troubles falling asleep even after implementing all of these tips, make sure to pay attention to fixing any hormonal issues you might have, including any possible adrenal fatigue, since being overly stressed out during the day can cause imbalances in your natural cortisol cycle which can make you more awake at night and more tired in the morning (obviously the opposite of what you want).
Eliminate any stressors from your life that you can, and also trying other relaxation techniques including meditation as a way to deal with stress if you still feel that you're too stressed out each day.
I hope today's topic gave you some immediately useful tips that you can use to start falling asleep easier and faster and feeling more rested and energetic when you wake up in the morning!
Make sure to pay attention to ALL of the tips above (especially #1) as they can all combine into a powerful regimen that relaxes you to sleep each night without any more insomnia, leaving you more energetic and ready to be productive when you wake up each day!
If you want to sleep better, balance your hormones, and fight against the aging process, don't miss the 'next page' below...
Go to the next page to see powerful natural remedies for:

• Lowering high blood pressure
• Controlling or reversing Type 2 Diabetes
• Boosting your sluggish metabolism
• Cutting off excess body fat
• Improving your brain health and memory
• Slowing down the aging of your skin, joints, and organs
• Healing your digestion problems

Next page

Please share with family and friends if you think they could benefit from these tips, thank you. 

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The Energy Drink Scam -- Do Energy Drinks Help You, or Can They Actually Make You Fat?

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified
Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-sellers:  The Truth About Six Pack Abs
& The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

Today I have a little rant on energy drinks...
I receive a ton of questions about all of these new "energy" drinks
that have hit the market over the last few years. They seem to be
all the rage, and they promise you the world with outrageous claims
of all of the super energy that you are going to have, and how you'll
become the best athlete in the world, start lifting cars over your head,
and get a perfect body.

So a couple questions arise:
Are these "energy" drinks really any good for you?
Do they actually increase your energy?
Do they really have some sort of magical energy formula?
Will they help you lose weight?

First of all, let's look at what most of these energy drinks are usually
made of. Most of them are simply carbonated water loaded with gut-fattening
high fructose corn syrup (or other added sugars), caffeine, the amino acid
taurine, and some crappy artificially-derived vitamins added for show to
trick you into thinking there's something healthy about these concoctions.

Let's start with the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Well, here we've got
empty calories that will go straight to your belly fat, and that are possibly
even WORSE for you than plain old refined sugar (although that's up for debate,
but semantics in the big picture).  Some energy drinks use other added sugars
instead of HFCS, but it doesn't really matter, because they are all gut-fattening
empty calories with no nutritional benefit.

Ok, so you say that they also have low-sugar or sugar-free varieties as an
alternative to the HFCS-laden energy drinks. Yes, but now you have the problem
of the harmful chemicals in the artificial sweeteners which have their own set
of health dangers.

Another problem with artificial sweeteners is that there are some research
studies that indicate artificial sweetener use leads people to inadvertently
consume more calories and gain more weight in the long run... in addition to
having a negative hormonal effect in the body.  I won't go into all of the
details on that topic because that would fill up an entire discussion by itself.

Just trust me that artificial sweeteners and artificial chemicals in food in general,
are ALL bad news for your body!  It's never a good idea to try to "trick" your
body with artificial tastes.

What about the caffeine?

Well, first of all, caffeine doesn't in itself provide "energy". Technically,
the only substance that actually provides energy is calories
(from carbs, protein, and fat).

However, caffeine can be an aid for livening or waking some people up, by
means of stimulating the central nervous system.

Instead of caffeine artificially added to some carbonated "energy" drink,
I'd rather get my caffeine from a natural source like green, white, or oolong teas
(or my new favorite - yerba mate teas), which actually provide very powerful healthy
antioxidants too!

Keep in mind though, if you're a regular daily coffee drinker, you probably have
some level of addiction to caffeine and probably wouldn't receive too much benefit
from the caffeine in an energy drink anyway.

Tip:  try to drink more tea and reduce your coffee intake to only a couple days
per week max to reduce your dependency on caffeine.  Most teas contain much less
caffeine than coffee, and some teas (such as green, white, and oolong) contain
synergistic phytochemicals that work to slow the response of the caffeine that
they do contain.  This means you get a milder response from the caffeine in green,
oolong, or white teas compared to the harsher jittery response that some people get
from coffee.

Now what about that so called magical blend of taurine and B-vitamins that they
load into these energy drinks?

Well, big deal...you get taurine in almost any protein source.
And the vast majority of those artificially added B-vitamins are simply coming
right out into the toilet in your pee. Vitamins are best obtained naturally
from a REAL food source, not artificially added to some carbonated drink.
Your body just doesn't use fake sources of vitamins as readily as natural sources
from real food.

So as you can see, in my opinion, I give all of these energy drinks a big time
THUMBS DOWN!  Don't fall for the ridiculous marketing of all of these so-called
"energy drinks".

Instead, here's my recipe for my own home-made energy drink:

1.  Make a big iced tea mixture using green tea, white tea, and yerba mate tea.
I like to add a little fruit flavor, so I'll use 1 tea bag of a raspberry or
blueberry hibiscus tea, and then use 2-3 green and/or white tea bags, and 2-3
yerba mate tea bags, and make a gallon container of iced tea.
I just use a small amount of stevia to lightly sweeten the batch of tea.

2. I buy a container of organic coconut water from a health food store,
or buy fresh coconuts to obtain the coconut water from the inside.

3.  For my healthy energy drink, I mix a half of a glass of the white/green/yerba
mate iced tea mixture and fill the rest of the glass with the coconut water.

This is actually a delicious and truly healthy energy drink instead of the
chemical-laden crappy energy drinks that everybody is getting suckered into
buying these days.

The green, white, and yerba mate teas contain a small dose of caffeine along
with a diverse mixture of powerful antioxidants and synergistic phytochemicals.
Plus, the coconut water is a rich source of electrolytes and a diversity of
vitamins and minerals.  Coconut water is known to provide a good instant energy
source, and also contains a small dose of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs),
which are healthy fats that are readily used for energy and also aid your
immune system.

So enjoy this natural healthy energy drink, knowing that you're doing your
body good instead of filling it with chemicals with normal store-bought
energy drinks.

Want to learn surprising superfoods that help you to look and feel younger
and leaner...

Unusual superfoods, spices, and herbs that FIGHT aging, HEAL your digestion, 
protect your joints & improve your brain

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