Who are these people who can just cut out soda, etc?

I_Will_End_You

My husband drinks A LOT of beer. If he stop drinking beer and made no other diet or activity changes, he would lose weight rapidly.

Jbarbo01

Uh man I empathize with you here! I never drink soda, juice, or eat a lot of sweets, drink a lot of alcohol, etc and my weight will stay the exact same. Usually people who lose weight from just cutting out soda were replacing meals or food with soda and were drinking a TON of it. From my experience, they are also often men and as you may know they lose weight faster than ladies. Plus these stories are usually the exception not the rule, most people have a hard time losing weight and it takes a lot of discipline for 85% of humans.

lemurcat12

I'd already cut out liquid calories before deciding to lose weight. It does seem like an easy thing to cut (although since I didn't consume them, of course it would). I think everyone overweight likely has some area where it's not that hard to cut down, though. (I ate pretty thoughtlessly in some ways.)

orchidbutterflies

I used to drink anywhere from 5-8 cans (355ml) of rootbeer or gingerale a day. I didn't intake any "straight" water. I was also consistently eating Mcdonalds and Wendy's; each visit was netting me 3,500+ calories on top of all the other food I ate each day.
I cut out pop, Wendy's & McDonald's cold turkey and went through a terrible week of migraines and extreme fatigue.
I still ate other fast food and I began replacing my pop intake with juice. I only lost 30lbs in 11 months (380lb to 350lb.)
However, I buckled down 7 months ago and began logging my food, cut out 95% of fast food and only drink water and have lost over 70lbs since then.

dubird

It's not about changing your metabolism, it's about eating less calories than you burn. Period. That's all you need to lose weight. You can do it by lowering the amount of calories you consume, burning more calories than before, or a combination of the two. For me, it's mostly category A. I cut out most sodas by switching to unsweet tea with Equal because it's a flavor I happen to like. But I still drink soda, mostly at games or if I'm really short on calories for the day. Just not every day like I was. Making that change cut out 200-300 calories a day from my diet that weren't really necessary. I don't eat dessert at restaurants much at all because I've gotten used to smaller, more normal portions and I'm usually to full to eat dessert now.

Losing weight isn't about WHAT you eat, it's about HOW MUCH you eat. Granted, a diet composed of nothing by twinkies and soda will catch up to you very quickly because you're not getting the nutrition you body needs to survive, but it can be done that way. I never cut out all my favorite 'junk' foods. (by junk food, i mean foods that are high in calorie but have little to no nutritional value) I simply found ways to cut down on them, espically when I was eating them due to snacking out of habit. I do eat a little better than I did, after all, if you substitute low calorie options for high calorie options, you can eat a lot more in terms of bulk! But I still have 'junk' food, I still eat foods that aren't as good an option nutrition-wise, and I'm doing fine. The only vitamin deficiency I have is something my body doesn't seem to want to absorb via my digestive track, not because I'm not getting enough of it.