Advice on Giving up Soda?

replace with a flavored water of some kind. I like the Crystal light green tea with raspberry - doesn't have that diet taste. You can choose any kind of low sugar/low sodium drink, though and then slowly wean yourself even off of that to something that has little to no calories to just water most of the time with other beverages being a treat.

Vickie

Best thing that helped me was the flaoverd drink powders you add to water. Different brands out so just find some that you enjoy the taste of. If you have to have the carbination, there are flavored waters that are just like soda but 0 cals.

My body is mostly water. My brain is like 80% water. (Yours too) And sodas were my BANE. I don't drink them ever unless I'm having alcohol and then very very sparingly. I know I'm supposed to have 8 to 10 or more cups of water a day without exercising. Add exercising and you need more. I didn't switch to milk or juice or tea or anything else. I switched to water. And I set my blinders so far forward it's working great. I can have tea. I just have to make it. I can have anything I want really. But good ol' water is zero calories!!! And so that's why it wins 99.99% of the time. I can drink it all day, especially when I think I'm hungry (but i'm not) and I'm doing pretty good so far. 82 days and counting.

I'm so glad the opti-fast diet made me feel ill after 3 days to point I couldn't continue it. And then I just took my "sensible" dinner and turned it into sensible breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 snacks. I don't always get in the snacks but usually I do. And instead of waiting until I get hungry to eat breakfast I eat it as early as I can. It's still a battle but some mornings I wake up starving! Most mornings not.

I've got two bottles of Ozarka in front of me as we speak. And I'm waiting on some combination vermicelli and 2 egg rolls with hot mustard. I have like 950 calories I still need to consume today. (More than that if you add my exercise calories in)

I get walmart brand flavored water. It has a lot of flavors to choice from... Also you can get bottles of water and get the crystal light packets to put in it to drink... I like soda and have cut down a lot. Although I still have one ever so often...

Call me crazy (won't be the first time) but for me, if I stick exclusively to water after a few days of drinking soda, iced tea, etc, it tastes "funny", "boring", "wierd" for a couple of days, and then my body seems to readjust and that's all I want.

I've turned into a water freak on this journey..... I carry a starbucks stainless steel insulated coffee mug (no handle) full of icewater in my purse whenever I leave the house.... carry it around the house with me wherever I am during the day..... :bigsmile: Told ya I was bonkers.... but it worked for me. :drinker: Good luck!!!

The first couple days were the worst. Be stubborn and persistant! You can do it! Why waste your calories on something like a beverage when you could have something yummier and more filling!? Makes eating out cheaper too..... haven't ever been charged for water..... :smooched: If I get bored with it (which I do, every now and again) I toss something healthy in, my favs are a couple cucumber slices, or orange slices, or lemon slices, or strawberries, berries, etc. It always does the trick!

:flowerforyou:

Btw, diet sodas got me to this weight too. But regular soda REALLY kicked it into overdrive. I had an illness and was off diet soda for a week and realized I hated the taste of them and was no longer used to their awful flavor. They're the worst. Regular sodas are easy to give up. 160 calories for 12 oz's just doesn't seem worth it. But if I really wanted ONE.....I'd have one and figure it into my totals. But totals dictate a lot of what I eat based on calories. Certain things have a lot more calories for very little.

I've had pretty much nothing but water for almost 3 months. I don't miss the Cokes, Pepsi's etc. I do feel bad for places I go out to eat at because I'll probably almost always order water and occasionally iced tea. I like ice tea with lemon only (no sugar) anyway. So, I just throw lemon into the water and it's the same thing.

I went from a 2 liter of dr pepper a day to dt dr pepper. Now I don't drink it at all. I can't because I had a lap band, or I totally would be guzzling dt dr pepper all day still. Since I can't have the carbonation, a month after surgery, when I felt better and was back on real food I tried making some soda really flat and drinking it. ugh bleh!!! It felt like battery acid. So gross. So I drink crystal light, lipton diet citrus green tea, and coffee. I feel like I have enough variation that I don't crave soda anymore. It took a long time to not crave it. About 9-10 months. But it would be worth it.
There are some diet soda's at the health food centers made with stevia. My husband says they're pretty good. I thought they tasted like real sugar and I hate that taste after being a diet drinker.
GOOD LUCK!

Soooooo.... it's been about a week.... how are you doing on either "no" sodas, or cutting back? What's helping so far?
:flowerforyou:

Another way around the flavored fizzy waters (which I am a bit weary of since a lot of them use artificial flavorings or added sugar) is to buy club soda or seltzer water and just add cut fruit in the glass (slices of orange, lemon or lime; cut strawberries or crushed raspberries or blueberries...). Of course, you can do the same with flat water as well...