Soda Addiction - looking for advice/motivation

carolinelanewa

If its the fizzy taste you like what about soda water with some fresh lemon. Ive never been a big fizzy drinker but when i feel like one this is what i have.

kwtilbury

If anything, I eat less when drinking diet soda because of the caffeine. I drink diet soda/energy drinks maybe 1-2 times a week now. In addition to coffee, I now primarily drink Amino Energy for a pick me up.

m98widow

Seltzer! I grew up drinking regular, non-diet soda and could never get used to the taste of diet. But as someone who doesn't like very sweet things (ironic, given how much regular soda I used to drink), seltzer hits the spot for me. I generally like the citrus flavors better than the berry flavors, but I even like plain.

singingflutelady

qwikstreet wrote: »

That is a lot of soda. I loved my soda too. What helped was reviewing studies that showed the dangers of soda. I also did some experiments with Coke and saw how good of a cleaning agent it was. Once I saw it dissolve rust, I knew that I had to cut it almost entirely out of my life.

Water is key and will be a huge jump start to your weight loss. Just one 2L bottle of water is over 8 cups. I believe your first few weeks of cutting soda out should be focused on water. Let it flush out the toxins in your body and rehydrate your body. This should help jumpstart your metabolism.

Yes, water is bland and boring to drink for eternity. Diet green tea is a good low sugar low calorie drink. I am currently addicted to the BAI Coconut drinks which are tasty, 0 sugar, and extremely low calorie.

Water though is key to the start of your success. Good luck to you.

Water erodes rock. Ever clean with vinegar?

TeaBea

singingflutelady wrote: »

qwikstreet wrote: »

That is a lot of soda. I loved my soda too. What helped was reviewing studies that showed the dangers of soda. I also did some experiments with Coke and saw how good of a cleaning agent it was. Once I saw it dissolve rust, I knew that I had to cut it almost entirely out of my life.

Water is key and will be a huge jump start to your weight loss. Just one 2L bottle of water is over 8 cups. I believe your first few weeks of cutting soda out should be focused on water. Let it flush out the toxins in your body and rehydrate your body. This should help jumpstart your metabolism.

Yes, water is bland and boring to drink for eternity. Diet green tea is a good low sugar low calorie drink. I am currently addicted to the BAI Coconut drinks which are tasty, 0 sugar, and extremely low calorie.

Water though is key to the start of your success. Good luck to you.

Water erodes rock. Ever clean with vinegar?

Yep - better avoid citrus too.

bbaugh2014

Soda is so addicting!!! Its easy to fall into the habit of drinking soda regularly-- I'm so guilty.
I think, the main thing here is to not punish yourself, but have will power.

In my personal experience there are 3 things that drive the soda craving, (1) Fizzy bubbles (yes its true!) (2) Sugar, (3) caffeine.

I'm almost 100% off soda (I treat myself to 1 can a week ) Here is how I kicked it, remember it takes time!

I started off by switching out half of my soda with carbonated flavored water. Don't even think its the same, because it isn't--however, it will give your body the fizzy bubbles its craving. Try alternating, 1 water, then a soda.

After a few days of that, I roughly estimated a shift to 1/4- regular H20. 1/2 sparkling water 1/4 Soda. If I wanted something bubbly, I needed to have some plain water first. If I wanted a soda, I needed to have plain water, then sparkling water before I could have a soda.

How I finally quit the bubbling was switching my flavored sparking water to flavored sparkling mineral water. I don't care for the taste of mineral water.. but I wanted the bubbles and sweeter flavor compared to plain water. Eventually my dis-taste for mineral water won and I drink only plain water.

I hope my experience can help you!

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

qwikstreet wrote: »

That is a lot of soda. I loved my soda too. What helped was reviewing studies that showed the dangers of soda. I also did some experiments with Coke and saw how good of a cleaning agent it was. Once I saw it dissolve rust, I knew that I had to cut it almost entirely out of my life.

We have a much stronger acid in our stomachs that basically neutralizes soda once the soda enters the stomach. Also, vinegar and baking soda are great for cleaning. We consume those on a regular basis, and a lot of the "health" advocates who warn us of the dangers of soda also recommend consuming ACV on a regular basis (which is not necessary, btw).

I'd also be curious as to which studies you are referring.

Water is key and will be a huge jump start to your weight loss. Just one 2L bottle of water is over 8 cups. I believe your first few weeks of cutting soda out should be focused on water. Let it flush out the toxins in your body and rehydrate your body. This should help jumpstart your metabolism.

Our organs take care of any toxins that need to be metabolized and excreted.

It is impossible to "jumpstart" your metabolism, and water has no metabolic effect.

Yes, water is bland and boring to drink for eternity. Diet green tea is a good low sugar low calorie drink. I am currently addicted to the BAI Coconut drinks which are tasty, 0 sugar, and extremely low calorie.

Water though is key to the start of your success. Good luck to you.

Sure, water is great, but we also can hydrate through the water in our foods, milk, coffee, tea, and yes, even soda. If it contains water, your body uses that water.

stevencloser

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »

qwikstreet wrote: »

That is a lot of soda. I loved my soda too. What helped was reviewing studies that showed the dangers of soda. I also did some experiments with Coke and saw how good of a cleaning agent it was. Once I saw it dissolve rust, I knew that I had to cut it almost entirely out of my life.

We have a much stronger acid in our stomachs that basically neutralizes soda once the soda enters the stomach. Also, vinegar and baking soda are great for cleaning. We consume those on a regular basis, and a lot of the "health" advocates who warn us of the dangers of soda also recommend consuming ACV on a regular basis (which is not necessary, btw).

I'd also be curious as to which studies you are referring.

Water is key and will be a huge jump start to your weight loss. Just one 2L bottle of water is over 8 cups. I believe your first few weeks of cutting soda out should be focused on water. Let it flush out the toxins in your body and rehydrate your body. This should help jumpstart your metabolism.

Our organs take care of any toxins that need to be metabolized and excreted.

It is impossible to "jumpstart" your metabolism, and water has no metabolic effect.

Yes, water is bland and boring to drink for eternity. Diet green tea is a good low sugar low calorie drink. I am currently addicted to the BAI Coconut drinks which are tasty, 0 sugar, and extremely low calorie.

Water though is key to the start of your success. Good luck to you.

Sure, water is great, but we also can hydrate through the water in our foods, milk, coffee, tea, and yes, even soda. If it contains water, your body uses that water.

All of this.
Also http://seriecientifica.org/sites/default/files/scl_enc_butchko.pdf

kristikitter

I'm into my third day of giving up soda cold turkey (the bloating I suffer from even one can of Diet Coke is quite painful and ridiculous) - I am consoling myself with the fact that it takes (on average) 66 days to form a new habit.

Only 63 days to go...

lemurcat12

cornysmall wrote: »

@heathbn soda addiction boils down to sugar addiction.

Probably not. It's usually about caffeine or just habit. (Indeed, lots of people struggle with cutting down on diet soda or find cutting down on sugary soda easy if they like and can sub diet.)

I'm cutting down on coffee now (not a big soda drinker and it's always been diet), and it's pretty much the same.

We get sugar in other parts of our diet, obviously, including from fruit and veg (I had 19 grams this morning from fruit and veg and plain greek yogurt).

cornysmall

lemurcat12 wrote: »

cornysmall wrote: »

@heathbn soda addiction boils down to sugar addiction.

Probably not. It's usually about caffeine or just habit. (Indeed, lots of people struggle with cutting down on diet soda or find cutting down on sugary soda easy if they like and can sub diet.)

I'm cutting down on coffee now (not a big soda drinker and it's always been diet), and it's pretty much the same.

We get sugar in other parts of our diet, obviously, including from fruit and veg (I had 19 grams this morning from fruit and veg and plain greek yogurt).

I agree about the caffeine, but sugar in fruit and veg is different from refined sugar, especially in the way the body metabolizes it and the brain reacts to it.

TanyaHooton

Motivation? Kidney stones. Osteoporosis. Mineral deficiency. Caffeine addiction. High blood pressure and triglycerides. Pre-diabetes.

Many users report that quitting carbonated drinks makes a huge difference in weight loss.

You do not have to go cold turkey. Try sweet tea or unsweetened tea. Try juice. Try seltzer water or infused drinks. Some of these options still have sugar or bubbles, but do whatever you need to do to get where you want. There's always time later for other changes if you want.

elphie754

cornysmall wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

cornysmall wrote: »

@heathbn soda addiction boils down to sugar addiction.

Probably not. It's usually about caffeine or just habit. (Indeed, lots of people struggle with cutting down on diet soda or find cutting down on sugary soda easy if they like and can sub diet.)

I'm cutting down on coffee now (not a big soda drinker and it's always been diet), and it's pretty much the same.

We get sugar in other parts of our diet, obviously, including from fruit and veg (I had 19 grams this morning from fruit and veg and plain greek yogurt).

I agree about the caffeine, but sugar in fruit and veg is different from refined sugar, especially in the way the body metabolizes it and the brain reacts to it.

No it's not.

zbobbsemple

I started weaning off soda by transferring to diet soda, then moved on to Zevia then flavored water to include infused water and I also use the 4C drink mixes found at walmart or some grocery stores. Now when I drink soda it taste bad because my palate is not accustomed to it. It took me about 45 days with this transition to form the habit. I was a heavy soda drinker before with little to no water in my diet.

lemurcat12

cornysmall wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

cornysmall wrote: »

@heathbn soda addiction boils down to sugar addiction.

Probably not. It's usually about caffeine or just habit. (Indeed, lots of people struggle with cutting down on diet soda or find cutting down on sugary soda easy if they like and can sub diet.)

I'm cutting down on coffee now (not a big soda drinker and it's always been diet), and it's pretty much the same.

We get sugar in other parts of our diet, obviously, including from fruit and veg (I had 19 grams this morning from fruit and veg and plain greek yogurt).

I agree about the caffeine, but sugar in fruit and veg is different from refined sugar, especially in the way the body metabolizes it and the brain reacts to it.

This is inaccurate.

Foods are different, but the sugar is the same. If it were an issue of "addiction to sugar," you'd be getting the same sugar from apples or pears, etc.

Anyway, like I said, I agree that we metabolize and react to different foods differently (with an apple you get more fiber, with ice cream you also get fat which makes it a harder combination to resist for many, even though the fat also slows the metabolism some, if you put ADDED sugar with rhubarb or oatmeal it will be metabolized more slowly than if you add it to coffee). It's IMO important to be accurate and specific when talking about this, as it's simply not true that the sugar itself is different in a meaningful way (fruit includes mostly a combination of fructose, glucose, and sucrose, which is itself a compound of fructose and glucose that your body will easily break down, whereas table sugar is sucrose).

anl90

The way you go about overcoming it really depends on the person. Some people can quit cold turkey - and I find that so amazing! However I personally could not do it. The way I have went about it in the past is to try and drink it every other day. And then eventually every two days. And so on, and so forth until I no longer get withdrawal symptoms. Finding a drink to replace it helps too - personally, I love Arnold Palmer, which isn't even half the calories of regular soda. I have faith that you can do this!!

cerise_noir

cornysmall wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

cornysmall wrote: »

@heathbn soda addiction boils down to sugar addiction.

Probably not. It's usually about caffeine or just habit. (Indeed, lots of people struggle with cutting down on diet soda or find cutting down on sugary soda easy if they like and can sub diet.)

I'm cutting down on coffee now (not a big soda drinker and it's always been diet), and it's pretty much the same.

We get sugar in other parts of our diet, obviously, including from fruit and veg (I had 19 grams this morning from fruit and veg and plain greek yogurt).

I agree about the caffeine, but sugar in fruit and veg is different from refined sugar, especially in the way the body metabolizes it and the brain reacts to it.

Disagree. To your body, sugar is sugar is sugar.

Will_Run_for_Food

Nothing wrong with coffee in moderation. If you're craving the fizz of soda, try club soda or sparkling water.

Shana67

I really, really like the LaCroix sparkling waters, and they are super helpful for avoiding soda, which I haven't had in years, quite literally.

lemurcat12

I love LaCroix too. We have them at my office, which is nice.

Wynterbourne

TanyaHooton wrote: »

Motivation? Kidney stones. Osteoporosis. Mineral deficiency. Caffeine addiction. High blood pressure and triglycerides. Pre-diabetes.

Many users report that quitting carbonated drinks makes a huge difference in weight loss.

You do not have to go cold turkey. Try sweet tea or unsweetened tea. Try juice. Try seltzer water or infused drinks. Some of these options still have sugar or bubbles, but do whatever you need to do to get where you want. There's always time later for other changes if you want.

I apparently am not one of the many. I've lost over 100lbs in 14 months without giving up my diet soda and I almost never drink plain water. When it's not soda I add Mio or the generic Mio-style water enhancers. Last time I had any plain water was earlier in the summer right after I got home from a 5.7 mile walk/jog in 85° heat. My weight loss has been right on track and really shouldn't be any quicker than it currently is so I don't see it being possible to make a huge difference for me.

Golbat

You could try cutting back on soda separately from cutting back on caffeine. Like find a different caffeine source (without sugar) and have that instead of the soda, and then when you're not craving soda anymore, slowly wean yourself off the caffeine.

crissy976

The artificial sweetener in the soda can actually make you hungry. The carbonation is not good for your stomach (bloating), your bones or your teeth. It eats away at the enamel on your teeth and breaks down the calcium in your bones and the cartilage that cushions them, leading to an array of other problems.
Switch to flavored water. If you need something that's sweet, maybe that'll help. Just don't get the carbonated or sparkling waters. You can even buy the little Mio's or Dasani flavor for water. It's cheap and has no calories. Plus you'd keep hydrated and putting water into your body instead of soda.

SusanMFindlay

crissy976 wrote: »

The carbonation is not good for your stomach (bloating), your bones or your teeth. It eats away at the enamel on your teeth and breaks down the calcium in your bones and the cartilage that cushions them, leading to an array of other problems.

Carbonation does none of those things. (Well, maybe it bloats you but it doesn't bloat me.)

Phosphoric acid is the ingredient in soda that's not particularly good for your teeth if you drink too much of it.