Opinion about my guilty pleasure

It depends on your metabolism and goals. Sugar makes you put on weight, period. How much is related to how strongly your body reacts to sugar. If you are aiming to lose or maintain weight then that coke is going to play hob with your dietary and fitness goals.

You have to be very careful with sugars, particularly the highly refined ones, and cravings. The cravings are particularly hard because glucose in combination with insulin reacts in your brain chemistry similar to narcotics, it triggers a biochemical reaction that can be addictive. So that craving for soda is probably about the same as a craving for a cigarette.

Depending on your metabolism that one coke a day can cause an absolute halt to weight loss regardless of caloric deficit because it is going to do a very hard insulin push, which will shove blood sugars and nutrients into fat storage as a panic response. Your body can only have about 2-3 tablespoons of glucose in the blood stream before it becomes toxic (coma and death if it goes too high, ask a diabetic). So insulin is a panic hormone that over-rides almost every other hormone in your body to get that blood sugar down. A coke is like main-lining 14 teaspoons of sugar - it hits your blood stream fully within 5 minutes of drinking, so your insulin reaction is going to be very strong. Since insulin pushes all the nutrients out of your blood stream and into fat, not just sugar, it leads to a swing into low blood sugar and blood nutrients shortly after, which leads to feelings of hunger.

Giving up soda was one of the hardest things I did, and after three years with out it even the smell of a coke makes me feel queasy. I went through the process gradually over two months, dropping right away to one soda a day, then one every-other day, then one a week. I stayed at one a week for about a month, then stopped it all together. I had vicious cravings for about a year, and I mean absolutely vicious. Soda's were by far the hardest, and probably most important, lifestyle and health change I made.

Stay away from the artificial sweeteners, they can also play hob with your biochemistry and muck with fitness and lifestyle change goals.

Good luck, and power too you!

It should have little, if any, affect on weight loss if it fits within your calorie goal.

I decided 8 months ago when I started this diet that I would devise something that I knew I could live with long term. I made a list of the things I knew I just never wanted to give up in life and I've structured my eating to allow for these things...such as alcohol. I knew I would drink on weekends, so I adjust my calories during the week to allow for this. By continuing to have the things I love in moderation I've eliminated that feeling of "suffering" through a diet which usually resulted in a binge of some sort.

So if soda is on your lifetime list of things you don't want to live without then I say go for it! Find a way to enjoy it.

I would recommend staying away form artificial sweeteners, they can really mess up some peoples cravings (I'm one of those people!) and if you aren't already hooked on having them, I would just not even go there.

As for the soda, its my biggest vice as well. I think the approach you are on right now is best. Have one a day for a month or so, then cut yourself down to once every few days, then only on the weekends, then once a week, and just keep weaning from there. Its not so much that having a soda will ruin your diet, as it is that you will find with time you feel better and more satisfied if you eat those calories instead of drink them. I pretty much always regret when I have a soda becase it does very little to make me feel full and once I'm done I wish I had those calories back for food! I try to match my soda treat with a day where I've worked out a lot so I don't feel like I'm sacrificing food for soda.

Just drink the soda, and stop feeling guilty. You're doing nothing wrong. If it's important to you to cut down on sugar, then you'll do it, but lifestyle changes sometimes take time. Stop beating yourself up about it and enjoy your cokes.