Ideas are more likely to turn into actions, it seems to me, if you say them out loud. That’s why I’ll often chant, “Make the hard work harder and the easy work easier,” on many bicycle rides.

Because of my personality and muscle makeup, I do much of my riding (probably too much) at close to 85 percent of my maximum heart rate. While that sort of effort creates a tough workout and certainly keeps me fit, many experts believe that it’s between 5 and 10 percent shy of what’s needed to elevate your fitness to a higher level, and all agree it’s about 20 percent above the effort that actually produces quicker muscle recovery than a day of no riding.

On certain days, the saying motivates me to take the sting in my legs and make it a stab. Yet on the days those stab wounds need to heal, it allows me to pedal easily and guilt free.

Likewise, you are more likely to adopt healthy behaviors if you read about them repeatedly. For that reason, increasing awareness as a way to enhance your health has been an ongoing theme in this column.

Being really aware of how your body is supposed to feel as you exercise, for instance, can keep subtle discomfort from developing into serious injury. That’s the argument for why you shouldn’t take a couple of pain relievers for a nagging backache an hour before a weightlifting workout that includes squats or deadlifts.

And that’s why once again I’ll write about an especially insidious quality to liquid calories.

In the same way that taking aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, and acetaminophen dulls your body’s ability to recognize pain, drinking soda, fruit juice, smoothies, milk shakes, and any other carb-laden liquid concoction dulls its ability to assess caloric intake.

In a seminal study published by The International Journal of Obesity in 2000, researchers found that while overeating solid carbohydrates “elicits precise dietary compensation” (meaning you instinctively eat less later), ingesting liquid carbs in any amount “elicits a weak compensatory dietary response.” In other words, liquid carbs just don’t register as calories, leading to “positive energy balance” — which is a really pleasant-sounding euphemism for something many are trying desperately to avoid.

Weight gain.

The way in which the researchers reached this conclusion this warrants mentioning.

After ascertaining the normal number of calories consumed by the 15 participants, the researchers had about half of them eat 450 calories of jelly beans daily but gave them no other eating or any exercise instructions. During that time, the other half drank 450 calories of soda a day and also received no other eating or any exercise instructions.

After a four-week break, the groups swapped jobs. The jelly-bean eaters now drank soda and the soda drinkers now ate jelly beans.

When compared to the number of calories they were ingesting before the study began, all 15 ate less additional food throughout the day during the four weeks they ate jelly beans. This reduction was great enough that no statistically significant weight gain occurred, even when physical activity was factored into the equation.

But when the 15 drank 450 calories of soda a day, a reduction in eating did not occur. In fact, caloric consumption was on the average 17 percent greater than it had been before the study.

As a result, body weight and body mass index averages were significantly higher after the four-week period of ingesting soda.

This may very well be the reason why so many people claim to gain weight despite watching what they eat. They are, in fact, actually eating less, but they are following a national trend that began — surprise, surprise — at the same time there was a sharp spike in the percentage of obese Americans.

They are consuming more calories from sugar-sweetened beverages, a circumstance mentioned in a 2009 study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The end result of this study showed that a reduction in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages leads to weight loss.

It also determined that a reduction of sugar-sweetened liquid calories produced greater weight loss than a commensurate reduction in solid calories. Interestingly enough, liquids made up of proteins, fats, and natural carbs, like milk, did not lead to weight gain.

The authors of the study theorize that the proteins and fats work as they do in solid foods to promote satiety and that the fructose found in sugar-sweetened beverages actually does what I’ve repeatedly warned you it does: promote fat storage to a higher degree than other forms of sugars.

So, as offbeat as it may seem, my advice to you when you have a strong hankering to slug down a sugar-sweetened soda is to gobble some jelly beans instead. At least that way, you won’t feel as hungry later.