Recently I watched an episode of Dr. Phil, featuring people with odd eating habits/compulsions, including a woman who ate chalk, and a (quite thin) woman who drank roughly a CASE of regular cola every day - in addition to her regular meals (she didn't say how much she eats, but did say that she didn't live on soda alone that she ate meals too).

So she's taking in anywhere from 3600 calories (if she does eat nothing else) to 5600 calories (if she eats an average amount of food). Not to mention the caffeine (about the equivalent of 6 - 8 cups of coffee).

It's incomprehensible that she's so thin (and looks so normal). The caffeine (as a stimulant) probably helps, but what kind of metabolism would she have to have to maintain a normal weight at this calorie level?

I'm guessing it will eventually catch up to her with health problems (even if none of them happen to be obesity), but I think it does suggest that some people do seem to somehow burn any extra calories, no matter how many they take in (she didn't report a lifestyle active enough to warrant the extra calories).

My brother was like that in his teens - no matter how much he ate, he never seemed to put on enough weight, but he was crazy active and was growing vertically at the time too.

I have to admit that my first reaction was envy of her metabolism, but even on the best metabolism that much sugar has to be doing some serious damage.

Maybe she was exagerating her cola consumption to get onto television. As much as I do see people with apparently very different metabolisms, I just can't wrap my head around an extra 3600 calories of sugar every day. Do you think she had to be lying/exagerating or do you know someone like this?

Oh theres a show on TLC with wierd eaters - I forget the name.
I saw a girl who had eaten nothing but french fries for 26 years.
And she had a daughter! How can you incubate a child while eating
nothing but french fries????
I saw someone else who only ate pizza, his health was terrible.

Wow, a case of soda plus up to 8 cups of coffee each day? If I had that much caffeine I'd have the jitters so bad my feet would leave the ground. Do you think that this woman has such extreme fidgeting/nervous energy thanks to the buzz that she burns some of the calories that way?
I feel ill just thinking about it.

I could easily consume 6-12 cans of soda a day before I quit. Sometimes it wasn't so much, but there were days that 8-10 wasn't abnomal. Now I never drink it (well, rarely drink a half of one)

I think the show is called Freaky Eaters. I watched some of the episodes. Ther is also a woman who eats only candy...thousands of calories of it ever day. And she wasn't obese either, perhaps slightly overweight, but def. not what I would have expected.

I wonder if their bodies have compensated over many many years of eating...and if they are actually starving in an odd sort of way due to lack of nutrients...hmmm...

Barb

we have a friend who drinks a 2 liter of soda a day. He's in his early 20's and he developed gout from it! He's not visibly overweight or anything, although he's a kinda big guy (tall, broad shoulders).

I also worked with someone who didn't eat breakfast/lunch but just drank 1 liters of pepsi all day. Some days he would drink 5-6 of them. He also wasn't overweight (he looked normal, although i suppose he could have been as I don't know his weight). He switched to pepsi one and he lost about 25 lbs in a month...he then looked quite trim!

and I thought i had a soda problem with drinking 4-6 a day lol but im down to on a average day 2 but occasionaly 3 now

A girl I knew in high school (boarding school) drank a case of coca cola a day. She kept it under her bed. She didn't eat breakfast or lunch and she barely nibbled at her dinner. She was thin, about 120 pounds and five feet seven.

One of my coworkers (male) doesn't drink much soda but he does drink 12 to 16 cups of strong coffee every day and eats a dozen cookies every day at lunch along with his sandwich. During the holiday season he's claimed to go through a gallon of eggnog in a weekend. He too, is thin.

I can't wrap my mind around the general health problems that would eventually result from drinking that much sugar and caffeine...not to mention the high levels of acid. Her teeth, her pancreas, her stomach...her heart!

I used to work with a women that since her teens (she was close to 50 when I worked with her) drank a case of diet coke a day. Her teeth were rotting from the acid, her doctor was constantly on her because the build up of artificial sweetener was making her MS so much worse, but she kept thinking it was fine because it was diet after all.

With all of this though, I do believe there are people who's bodies just handle this kind of stuff differently than the average person. It's why there are people who eat nothing but junk and never have any health implications, or chain smoke into their 90's, or drink alcohol in amounts that would make most of our livers cry but never develop liver problems.

I know someone who got up to 16 cans of beer a day. When he's sober he replaces the beer with 7-up. What I can't figure out is that he's thin when he's drinking and plumps up on the soda. I thought beer was higher in calories.

What I can't figure out is how anyone drinks that much of anything! I couldn't drink the equivalent in water.

Oh my gosh. That cannot be good.

I just looked it up - there are 39 grams of sugar in each 12oz can of soda. With just her soda alone, she's getting nearly 1000 grams of sugar a day. That'd be equivalent to eating 234 sugar cubes in one day. :| I don't see how anyone can consume that much sugar without doing some damage to their body.

I'm going to have to try and catch that show- that is insane.

Oh, btw- I came across this link as I was looking up sugar content. It's a great visual.. and kind of disturbing honestly.

http://www.sugarstacks.com/

I will admit I have a diet coke problem and probably drink 2-3 two liters a day. I know it is awful. Although when I was young it was regular pepsi and that definitely had an affect on my weight at the time. I think I lost 30 lbs rather quickly when I was about 19 just by switching to diet coke. As far as the caffeine goes it has no affect on me at all if I don't drink enough of it I do get that caffeine headache and as long as eat I don't get the jitters I think you body almost adjusts to the caffeine the longer you do it. I can drink it any time of the day I drink it up until I go to bed at night and have no problem sleeping.

This is one of those terrible habits that I hate to admit to but it is a problem for me and I know that inside my body I am probably paying a higher price than I can even imagine. But I continue to do it and don't know how to stop. I am sure it is equivalent to how an alcoholic feels about their addiction. I feel for her it is truly a very hard thing to stop!

My nutritionist wanted me to limit diet soda to no more than a can a day because of the chemicals and artificial sweeteners. It's really not good for you. I haven't had it in a few weeks.

Those people who are thin are most likely very unhealthy. Thin does not equal healthy at all as many of us here I'm sure have learned.

I believe it though- I have a friend that easily consumes a 6 pack of soda a day- I probably don't even consume a 6 pack in a month- I'd say a 6 pack would take me at least 6 weeks to go through I'm not a big soda drinker.

My husband has MS too and he's cut down on his soda intake quite a lot- there is no proof if it's good or bad but overall seriously nobody NEEDS to drink soda!

I maintained 129 pounds my entire adult life eating around 3,500 calories a day. And certainly sometimes I went up above 4,000. But when I was eating that much, I was working out hard about 15 hours a week. Now I still work out about 12 hours a week. I can't imagine eating that much, or more than that, without exercise. And I definitely didn't consume that kind of sugar.

My BF can eat all day and night and gain nothing. And I live with him and work with him. I know what he eats and drinks. He's not picking. And he loves his alcohol. At parties I have no doubt he's consumed 1,500 calories and more before in alcohol. And cookies! He'll sit down and polish off four or five 300-calorie chocolate-chip cookies at a party, too. All told, that's a lot of sugar and calories both, and he also eats all his regular meals on a day like that. So, yeah: we're talking 5,000+ calories. He's 49, works out probably four hours a week at most, and has never weighed more than 135 at 6'. In fact, if he happens to weigh 135 for a day he's thrilled. His meals are healthy, but he is a big one for cookies and alcohol.