Celebrating the removal of "Diet Coke" from my life menu!

JeanineLaymon1970

So I have been soda-free since Easter Sunday and I am sooo proud. I used to drink around 6 cans of regular coke a day. when I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes I make the switch to Diet Coke. Now that I am on my weight loss journey I have stopped drinking sodas entirely. I feel like it really makes a difference! Anyone else trying to quit? Have a soda quitting story? Let me hear it!

Jeanine

lailenm

I've never ever EVER been attracted to regular coke at all - I don't know exactly why I was attracted to Diet Coke in the first place, but that was all I ever drank, apart from water when I felt like it. I've been soda free for .... at least 3 weeks now, and I'm finding it a lot easier to defiantly say no to soda whenever I'm out running errands or with people. Just the other day, my grandmother and I went out to lunch and a movie for Easter, and I skipped the soda at the restaurant and the movie theatre, and I felt really good about it. :]

kwrecks

ugh, you girls are like my heroes because Diet Coke is one of those things that I can't seem to shake. I will get rid of it for a week or two, but then somehow it sneaks its way back in.

JeanineLaymon1970

That is AWESOME! I know I will struggle when eating out. But am excited to get soda out of my life!

Jeanine

deecloutier

Does it really make a difference to not have the Diet coke? It is my favorite! I try to only have on can a day.. or every other day.
I do find that if I have a soda that day, my water intake is less.

cenafan

YAY! good job!

have to say though...I will never give it up. I call it the "sweet nectar of the Gods". LOL it's my only vice...I don't drink, smoke or eat badly anymore. So nope...it stays!!!

jamielr84

I was drinking regular coke all day long until I started my weight loss journey. I mean the big huge fountain drink size cups of coke! I went cold turkey and haven't had one in almost 15 weeks. I do drink diet coke on occasions (usually with some captain morgan mixed in there) but other than that, its water, water, water!

Jentorres8814

ugh, you girls are like my heroes because Diet Coke is one of those things that I can't seem to shake. I will get rid of it for a week or two, but then somehow it sneaks its way back in.

I'm with you on this one ! I've kicked it once before for a few weeks but the headaches that came were not a fun thing. I happened to start drinking the diet soda again after the holidays but I've since limited it to dinner. I'm looking to stop for good though !

Helice

Yep i had it bad for pepsi max..
It was all i would drink, except the occasional cup of tea.
But i had to give it up because i was spending about £20 a week on 2L bottles of pepsi max!
I would drink 4 - 8 litres of the stuff a day!
And now my diet is water and alot more cups of tea..
And i have to say im feeling much better.
I mean all of the pepsi max was giving my metabloism a massive boost..
but now that i'v stopped drinking it.. If i do get it with a meal, etc..
Alot of the time i'l go and grab a glass of water instead..
Give it a week and ur body should be grateful for the change!
Even if it doesn't seem like it now!

superboltman714a

Good for you. Diet sodas are not good for you anyway! The only good thing is they are low in calories, but they are finding the chemicals to be bad for you. I only drink water, which gets boring. I also try to stick with Stevia for a sugar substitute. It is healthier and a natural grown item. I will have a glass or wine with dinner, it I can get it in my calorie limit.

ukhennin

Diet Coke is one of my rewards, but I maybe have one or two per week and only if I have already met my water intake for the day.

I used to have it all the time. The one problem I had with that is it really prevented me from getting the water I needed. Now I get all of my water and I feel better just from that.

Mustangsally1000

I made it exactly a day and a half without the diet coke. Damn near fell asleep on my desk at work! And...I usually only drink 1 a day. Okay, maybe 2..the second one later in the evening, and i buy those little bitty cans. I ususally get a fountain one on the way to work, and it lasts me till lunch. Couldn't believe how tired i was!!! I need to try again. Thanks for the little kick..I needed it.

gamecockmama

I was a Diet Dr. Pepper addict, and I cut it out of my lifestyle about two months ago. I could kill a 12 pack in a matter of 2 or 3 days, and it got to the point where drinking them just made me feel bad. The first two weeks were ROUGH! I was moody and my head hurt constantly, but now I feel so much better. I will still occasionally have a diet drink if I'm out to eat (which is rare), but I don't crave them like I used to. Good for you for getting rid of them and good luck with sticking with it!

DianaPowerUp

I've quit Diet Coke too. The first few days were really tough, I'd have to say. I didn't realize that you could actually get hooked on that stuff, even tho I only drank one or two at the most/day! After that, it got easier, and pretty soon, I didn't even miss it. Now, it almost seems too sweet to me to have with food, and not as refreshing and satisfying as water or unsweetened iced tea.

There are still some things that I eat, on occasion, that I'd like to have a Diet Coke with - pizza or popcorn, for ex. Who wants water with popcorn??? But b/c I rarely eat that stuff, I rarely need to have soda.

Btw, before I dropped the soda, I had plateaued, for almost a month! When I cut out the diet sodas, I lost 3 lbs - boom! I swear, there is something evil in that stuff, altho tasty. Anything that police use to remove blood from asphalt, or that can dissolve car paint, probably shouldn't be ingested, lol!

lindalee0315

I'm reading your post as I'm drinking my Diet Coke. I doubt I'll ever really give it up. I figure it's my one vice. I've cut way back, but I just love the stuff. For me, there is nothing like an ice-cold Diet Coke in a can. (That's my favorite way of drinking it).

MJKing2

I'm on day 17 of no Diet Coke. I occasionally miss it and there have been a couple of times where I reach for one when I'm out shopping out of habit, but I'm luckily stopped myself before I drink it. Other than that I really haven't missed it yet. I'm not committing to giving it up ENTIRELY for the rest of my life, but until I get strong enough to just have 1 can every now and then and not sit and drink a 6 pack in 2 days then I'm saying no. Good luck and congrats!

JLPearce12

I also had a really hard time getting the diet soda out of my life but it gave me headaches when I drank it so you would think it would have been easy.....it wasn't!!! I think the headaches were a sign to me that it wasn't good for me. Anyway, I just wanted to post to say it does get easier, I don't think about wanting one everyday like I used to and I feel a TON better without it! GOOD LUCK!!!

elainegsd

I stopped drinking sodas about 18 months ago, and I regularly give my body a break from coffee... the trick I find works is to substitute something else in. For the sodas, I substituted in soda water with a little Torani syrup in a fruit flavor. It was much easier to stop drinking the diet coke with the home made soda as a substitute, and getting off the home made soda was fairly easy. Now I can't stand the thought of drinking soda, either regular or diet!

When I stop drinking coffee for a while, I first switch to iced tea for a week or two, then stop drinking the iced tea. I have not yet intended to stop drinking coffee forever (a girl needs her vices, after all!), so each time I wait the designated amount of time (usually 8 weeks) before starting the coffee again. Funny thing is that I enjoy coffee more after one of my breaks.

Bottom line: If you have troubles cutting back/stopping something like soda, try switching to a new habit that is similar but less appealing to you.

amacd999

I went from regular coke to diet coke and now to caffeine free diet coke. I have one glass after supper in the evening and my next step is to wean that back to every other day and so on till it is gone. I know how hard it is to break the cycle LOL - you should be proud of yourself!

mponeil1982

Does it really make a difference to not have the Diet coke? It is my favorite! I try to only have on can a day.. or every other day.
I do find that if I have a soda that day, my water intake is less.

First, to the OP, GOOD FOR YOU! Soda, to me, is one of those things I don't keep in the house, by choice. (Though when there is a 2 Liter, I make sure it's diet).

Now, as far as the question quoted above, I read an article (http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/22/study-diet-soda-may-not-raise-risk-of-diabetes-after-all/) that talks about studies of Diabetes and Diet Sodas and that there doesn't appear to be a link between the disease, but more so the type of person. Meaning, people on diets or with diabetes may just drink diet-soda by default because of that 0 calorie nutrition lable.

I think the very last sentence in this article means a LOT, especially in the dieting world: "moderate consumption is not going to have appreciable harmful effects". Just make sure to get that water in! Soda of any kind doesn't count towards water consumption! :-)

lailenm

ugh, you girls are like my heroes because Diet Coke is one of those things that I can't seem to shake. I will get rid of it for a week or two, but then somehow it sneaks its way back in.

I'm with you on this one ! I've kicked it once before for a few weeks but the headaches that came were not a fun thing. I happened to start drinking the diet soda again after the holidays but I've since limited it to dinner. I'm looking to stop for good though !

My mom had a BIG problem with regular Coke. She used to get these terrible headaches going from drinking it all the time to trying not to drink it at all. The key to that is to slowly decrease your intake - that was what worked for her. And to keep her water intake up, she tried out flavored carbonated water - it gives you the same fizz that the sodas do without being as bad for you as the sodas are. Now that she isn't so dependent on Coke as a drink anymore, and since she hates water, she has to have it flavored, and the only kind she'll use is the Crystal Light - On the Go Wild Strawberry flavoring. She only drinks soda every now and again, but she's manged to keep herself from falling back into the habit of drinking it all the time.

And congrats to everyone else that's sticking to their soda-free plans! That's so awesome!

crewellademel

Good for you! I too have given it up and can really see a difference in how I feel. For anyone trying to change to a healthy way of eating....for those of us who just crave the stuff....it's better to get rid of it for good. I suffered from migraines for years until I gave it up and not had one since! But the headaches on withdrawal lasted for 4 days. Honestly, I felt like an alcoholic giving up the drink...total detox like stuff! Lots of people have said, and I agree, that it really cuts down on your water intake. One of the things helping me lose wt is when I stick to my daily water intake. Also, I've read that caffeine can mess with your blood sugar, so that's not helping either, and in veterinary medicine, Nutrasweet is used as an appetite stimulate in sick animals.......so I tend to think it would have the same affect on humans too! Good Luck with this....it's not easy but YOU CAN DO IT! :flowerforyou:

amy29fan

I used to have 6-8 cans of diet coke per day. Then my doctor linked them to my migraines. He told me I was an addict. And I was, but then I went on a medication for the migraines, and it instantly made me lose the taste of the diet coke. Which was great. Then I got pregnant 7 years ago, and I couldn't take my medication. So the diet coke started again. Then the headaches came again. I continued this for about 5 more years.I couldn't stop drinking it this time. Then I lost my mother in January 2010, and my headaches suddenly stopped. It's crazy. So the diet coke continued back to the 6-8 per day. Then I found MFP, 100 days ago, and I can now say that I am down to 1 diet coke per day. I am trying to get out of the habit, and today, it is 11:45 am and I have not had a diet coke yet. I have however, had (4) 20oz bottles of water so far...It's so hard to quit...

adamjett

I am 25 and have struggled with this all my life. I remember going to 7-11 as a kid after school and getting soda (Diet cause my Mom was a calorie nut) and some sort of snack. So it's kind of engrained in me and It's carried with me ever since. I have recently found a lot of problems with it from different research I have heard which is slowly chipping away at my habit. It definetly causes headaches and migraines that I previously associated with other things (like most addicts). The aspertaim in it also tricks your body and makes you produce insulin which they say makes you hungrier which none of us really want. I also saw on NBC nightly news several months ago that they are linking caramel color to cancer. I have personally only experienced the headaches and don't won't to take the risk that it will affect me later in life. The scary thing is that this stuff had only been around for so long and we don't have any real long term studies that show it's effects (even if there was we would never hear it because of the money Coke and Pepsi have). It's a struggle for me everyday and I hope like most of us to kick the habit for good eventually. Good luck everyone!

kms1981

Gave up sode Jan 1, 2011 and haven't looked back! I loved soda of all kinds! Just water and iced tea now!

JeanineLaymon1970

So.. Fact or Fiction this is what I have heard/dicsovered about Diet Coke:

1. I know I drink less water when I am drinking Diet Coke, usually not any
2. They use Coke or Coke syrup to remove bloodstains from the street (after an accident)
3. I have heard about studies linking Type II Diabeties - raising blood sugar with dark sodas
4. It has a bunch of chemicals in it, it can't be good for you something in there has got to cause cancer
5. With they way everyone is addicted to it, they HAVE to be adding something to cause that... Right?

Coke <at least 3 cans a day> to Crystal Light to Diet Coke <learned to love it> to water. funny enough even Crystal Light seems too sweet for me now sometimes...

People at work used to ask me if I had my Diet Coke yet when they called me before 10am... LOL That was the hardest part, my wake-up regimen.

Anyways, I have really enjoyed reading all of your posts! If I can quit it... ANYONE CAN! (am also a quit smoker 8 1/2 years) You just have to make a decision that you won't pick up the bad habit again.

Jeanine

JeanineLaymon1970

YES!!!!!

JeanineLaymon1970

"sweet nectar of the gods" ---LMAO!!!

JeanineLaymon1970

AWESOME! I know you saw a direct relation to weight loss from eliminating Soda
Jeanine

gtm124

Moderation is the key. I will drink a Diet Coke on occasion maybe 1 serving a week or every other week to break up the water and unsweet tea routine.

melt57

I gave up diet coke when I joined MFP, and I have been drinking water water water! If we are out I will have unsweetened iced tea sometimes. I am glad I gave it up, but every once in a while I think, I could just have one.... I won't do it though, I'm afraid of a relapse!!!