So I finally kicked the diet soda habit... Need help

I'd like to offer up a humble observation for you (and I say this with all kindness, because I've been there!): This diet soda "habit" that you think you've kicked? You actually haven't. If you are this desperate to find something to satisfy some kind of "drink craving" that appears to be plaguing you (otherwise you wouldn't have posted this thread), then you still are practicing the habit. All you're doing is substituting different substances for your former drink.

It's the same thing as the folks who give up desserts and then search and search for low-cal substitutes like fat-free frozen yogurt, etc. It's not just the food you're looking to get the 'hit' from, it's the behavior. What many people don't realize is that Behaviors can be even bigger habits/addictions than food! What ends up happening to most folks who try to substitute stuff for their former habitual (read: trigger) foods and drinks, is they end up going back to the original food or drink and getting hooked on it worse than before. It's because these "substitute" foods and behaviors leave them wanting, compared to their old stuff. Eventually, they cave to the craving because of the pressure of hanging on by their fingernails.

My suggestion would be to first learn to let go of "having to have" something besides water to drink. Purge and cleanse your body ENTIRELY with water for a couple weeks. Learn to stop "needing" something to "satisfy" you. Let your mind relax and let go - stop feeding the mental/emotional cravings for awhile. Detox. Let the cravings subside. You just might find out you really don't need other types of juices and stuff to satiate you anymore.

Hello,
I just want to say thanks to the person who made the above statements. I am personally struggling with behaviors where my eating habits are concerned, and this was a great post for my benefit. Good luck to everyone, as we have to follow our own individual, healthy weight loss programs to reach our goals.

lockmand
donna 155

When I (mostly) stopped drinking soda I switched to the flavored powders in bottles of water. I normally buy store brands which cost significantly less than brands like Crystal Light. Also I usually make them go further by getting two bottles of water from each packet. Probably not as healthy as plain old water but certainly cheaper and healthier than soda. Now I find most soda to be sickeningly sweet to the point of unpleasantness.

One thing I've noticed: For me, dehydration is kind of insidious. If I notice I'm feeling generally tired or headachy or crappy in some way, it's often because I haven't had enough fluids. My default response is to drink a couple glasses of water and that usually makes me feel better. Funny how sometimes the simplest answer is the best

Here is your link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/splenda-health-risks-cspi-leukemia-artificial-sweeteners_n_3431024.html

And I truly do not understand why you are taking jabs at me saying I don't understand things.

FYI, a link to the Huffington Post is not a link to a research study. The Huffington post talks about an unpublished study referenced by a "watchdog" group with questionable motivations.

Wait til it's published in a peer-reviewed journal and we can see the actual data before drawing any conclusions.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit watchdog group, said today that it was downgrading its safety rating of sucralose from "safe" to "caution," meaning that the additive "may pose a risk and needs to be better tested."

The change was spurred by a recent study from researchers in Italy that found that sucralose caused leukemia in mice, according to the CSPI. This study has not been published, and needs to be reviewed by other scientists to determine whether the findings are credible.

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quote from the article

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Basically, what it's saying is, some one who runs a website somewhere found a lost article from some Italian website some where, used google translate, and is now trying to sell his "findings" to fund his next Comicon . Relax and drink your diet soda/juice/coffee/tea or other beverage.

That's not a fair statement. The study in question could be a groundbreaking article awaiting publication in Lancet. Who knows. Wait til it's published. If it never gets published, there's a reason.

Like others have said, if you want to avoid the 'faux sugars', try some teas (herbal or not.) Plenty that taste great iced. I like 'true lemon' packets for lemon water - sweetened or unsweetened. Like carbonated, but want to control what it's sweetened with? Get one of those soda carbonators, but add your own 'flavorings'.

I don't mind artificial sweetners, but my problem is, I like a LOWER level of sweet than is usually used. For some reason, if it's Sugar Free, someone thinks it has to taste 'extra sweet' like that makes up for something (or hides aftertastes.)

I don't particularly like to drink plain water, thus why I use the true lemon. I'll down tap water if it has a little lemon or lime in it. Otherwise, I only like tap water if it's been filtered. At least for my tap water, it makes it taste more neutral. The packets allow me to add sweetener if I like, and if I just use one, it's a really mild flavoring. I take them to work too - otherwise I'd only be drinking coffee.

Experiment!

I ocassionally drink a diet coke, i dont think it will do too much harm to your body if you can keep it from being a constant. I drink a lot of tea that's low in caffine during the day when I dont want water

Losing the zero calories drink to help lose weight goes with the new studies that drinking diet soda causes our bodies to crave sugar and eat more.... Also the obvious high levels of sodium in each soda thus causing water retention.

Please may we have links to these studies?

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2013/Q3/prof-diet-drinks-are-not-the-sweet-solution-to-fight-obesity,-health-problems.html



http://download.cell.com/images/edimages/Trends/EndoMetabolism/tem_888.pdf


ABSTRACT

Artificial Sweeteners Produce the Counter-Intuitive
Effect of Inducing Metabolic Derangements

Susan E. Swithers

As the negative impact of consuming sugar-sweetened beverages on weight and other health outcomes has been increasingly recognized, many people have turned to high-intensity sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose and saccharin as way to reduce risk of these consequences. However, accumulating evidence suggests that frequent consumers of these sugar substitutes may also be at increased risk for excessive weight gain, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease. This paper reviews these findings and considers the hypothesis that consuming sweet-tasting, but non-caloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages, interferes with learned responses that normally contribute to glucose and energy homeostasis. Because of this interference, frequent consumption of high-intensity sweeteners may have the counterintuitive effect of inducing metabolic derangements.

From the USA Today article about this study of other studies.
One large study found that people who drank artificially sweetened soda were more likely to experience weight gain than those who drank non-diet soda. Others found those who drank diet soda had twice the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, often a precursor to cardiovascular disease, than those who abstained.



From earlier studies cited in 2012:
http://www.naturalnews.com/035070_diet_soda_weight_loss_aspartame.html
Studies from UT San Antonio Health and Science

http://uthscsa.edu/hscnews/singleformat2.asp?newID=3861


I am sure there are studies funded by the American Beverage Association will refute everything put forward by these other studies and they will be equally quoted.

American Diabetes Association still promotes use of artificial sweeteners to replace sugar. The possible side effects of the artificial sweeteners in someone who is already diabetic is probably not as potentially dangerous as the real side effects of sugar consumption for a diabetic.

I have had a huge diet soda addiction for most of my adult life and am morbidly obese. Others can drink sixty two cans per day and are rail thin. There are many other factors that contribute to my obesity (alcohol, lots of fats, lots of other processed carbs, etc., etc.) and there are many factors that contribute to someone slamming diet cokes all day and not gaining weight.

If you can drink diet soda and lose weight, knock yourself out!

If you drink diet soda and gain weight because you find yourself unconsciously eating other things due to "cravings," real or otherwise, then maybe water is the way to go.

Thing is, find out which works for you!

I'm just a few hours away from completing 2013 without a drop of soda pop. Other than early morning coffee (black) and a pre-workout protein shake each day (some of which is poured onto my oatmeal), I drink nothing at all except water.

Helps to put lots of ice in it so it is nice and cold.

There's still time. Most stores are still open, and if not there will be vending machines here and there.

Grab a Diet Mtn Dew before it's too late!

I LOVE SODA also! Now, I am down to 24 Soda's a week. It was very hard, kind of like an addiction. 1 case a week is my new allowance. I am praying that in 14 I can tone it down this even more. Diet Mountain Dew is my go to-

Didn't aspartame and nutrasweet get harnessed with causing cancer in lab rats? Again if I'm wrong I'll be very happy that I can drink some diet soda and not sweat it

1) Rats aren't humans.
2) Those rats are specifically designed to develop cancer at very high rates. Think about that for a minute.
3) Those rats only form cancer at rates significantly different from control at doses of aspartame that are equivalent to hundreds of liters of diet soda a day. There are thousands of chemicals you consume every day that cause cancer in such rats at such high dosages.

Aspartame is one of the most studied chemical compounds in the history of mankind. It has yet to be linked to any undesirable health outcome, except in people with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (a disease involving the inability to metabolize phenylalanine, a naturally-occurring essential amino acid that happens to be present in aspartame.)

Sorry curiosity got me here - but how precisely do you design a rat? Are these special GMO rats or something?

Edit - my question pertains specifically to point 2 of the argument above.

This is a video about a study on GMO that used rats that have high rates of brain cancer naturally, and concluded that GMOs cause brain cancer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWQON4FzQo4

I'm fascinated ans drunk, all at the same time. I like soda.

I could never give up caffeine but haven't had a soda in years. Green tea and water with lemon is my go to (and coffee of course :-)

Ditto!!!

I'd like to offer up a humble observation for you (and I say this with all kindness, because I've been there!): This diet soda "habit" that you think you've kicked? You actually haven't. If you are this desperate to find something to satisfy some kind of "drink craving" that appears to be plaguing you (otherwise you wouldn't have posted this thread), then you still are practicing the habit. All you're doing is substituting different substances for your former drink.

It's the same thing as the folks who give up desserts and then search and search for low-cal substitutes like fat-free frozen yogurt, etc. It's not just the food you're looking to get the 'hit' from, it's the behavior. What many people don't realize is that Behaviors can be even bigger habits/addictions than food! What ends up happening to most folks who try to substitute stuff for their former habitual (read: trigger) foods and drinks, is they end up going back to the original food or drink and getting hooked on it worse than before. It's because these "substitute" foods and behaviors leave them wanting, compared to their old stuff. Eventually, they cave to the craving because of the pressure of hanging on by their fingernails.

My suggestion would be to first learn to let go of "having to have" something besides water to drink. Purge and cleanse your body ENTIRELY with water for a couple weeks. Learn to stop "needing" something to "satisfy" you. Let your mind relax and let go - stop feeding the mental/emotional cravings for awhile. Detox. Let the cravings subside. You just might find out you really don't need other types of juices and stuff to satiate you anymore.

I'm a behaviorist, and while you are right in that the behavior hasn't changed, a huge part of successfully breaking a maladaptive behavior is by replacing it with a behavior that is better for the individual.

For example... Replacing the behavior of snacking on chips with snacking on veggies does not get rid of the snacking behavior. It replaces it. It doesn't mean the individual will resort to old habits. In fact, trying to change someone's behaviors overall too drastically without offering replacement behaviors will do that.