If you were a soda drinker,

I drank a ridiculous amount of coke throughout my childhood, teenhood and throughout my twenties. During my late teens it was really bad because my neighbour had a soda machine and I lived over there at that time. I would always be drinking coke there and then making more throughout the day. I should have paid their grocery bill for the amount of time I was over there and the amount of coke I drank alone. I'd also always have a 1L with me or buy a 2L for when I was home. I don't know what stopped me from drinking it really. I know that just before I turned 30 or so I listened to an Anthony Robbins audio book and that made me think about my health in a different way and I stopped smoking and stopped drinking coke and started becoming more active. I can't remember if I ever went back to drinking it though. I know when I would have a coke after that time though that I would feel like dog crap afterwards. I never realised how badly that **** screwed me up. When I have the odd drink now it's not so much that I don't like the taste because I still do but I don't like the after effects. I feel like I'm having a heart-attack almost and it gives me a mini panic attack.

17 years ago (or maybe 18 by now) I gave up soda cold turkey. I grew up drinking soda like it was water. My science teacher listed off a few things that carbonation did to the body. One of them was that it stole oxegyn from the body's cells. I have asthma so I decided I needed to give it up. I don't know if that's actually true, I've never heard it anywhere else. But it was the reason I gave it up and I couldn't care less if it's true or not. I did try some soda a few years later and didn't like how much it made me burp so decided that I would never have another one again. Now, I can't even stand the thought of it! I had to drink a carbonated drink for a medical test not too long ago and I almost threw up several times. That stinging feeling of carbonation is awful on my tongue!

Most people say that you shouldn't cut anything out of your diet if you don't want to. If you don't want to cut it out completely, then you should try setting a weekly (or some other time frame) goal for yourself and if you accomplish it, then reward yourself with a coke. That way you still get them, but you have to earn them. But if what you do want is to give them up completely, the easiest way for me is to do things cold turkey. If you go a month without one and you suddenly have another one, it's harder to stop yourself from having another, and another, as you've noticed. But if you don't allow yourself to drink one, then your system isn't shocked into craving overdrive periodically.

Good luck.

I drink diet soda. I don't miss the real stuff at all.

I was a die-hard Coca-Cola drinker, too, since I was a kid. But I didn't stop until I:
- read about the harmful effects of soda like the earlier post;
- watched Food, Inc. which shows how harmful soda's main ingredient (high-fructose corn syrup) is to a person's health;
- learned that drinking soda add 15 lbs of fat per year;
- committed to drinking 8 cups of water per day. I didn't have time to drink anything else!

I recommend starting with the premise that "soda is detrimental to my health" then read everything you can to support this thought. And start drinking 8 cups of water a day. You'll be glad you did.

I also stopped for the same reasons, had a COCA COLA addiction since I was a kid...stopped cold turkey and now it's water and Canada Dry Lemon Lime Seltzer for me because I still like a little fizz when I eat dinner and of course water and tea.

I stopped drinking soda when my 12 year kept coming back from dentist appointments without a single cavity. She's not exactly diligent with brushing her teeth, but she has NEVER had soda of any kind. She hates carbonated drinks. So I figured that there was something to it.

Top 10 Reasons to Give Up Soda
By Steve Edwards


10. Soda may cause cancer. According to a report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, consuming two or more soft drinks per week increased the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold compared to individuals who did not consume soft drinks. As reported, the study "followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week (averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared with individuals who did not."
Then why, you're probably asking yourself, is this number ten on our list and why is soda even still on the shelf? Not that I'd challenge the ability of such large corporate power to hide such a thing but, in this case, the study slit its own throat. As one of the researchers noted, "soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for," meaning that we have no way of knowing, for sure, if soda was the culprit. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that when you drink soda it lumps you into a fairly unhealthy user group.1

9.It's not just about calories. Calories grab headlines, but recent science is showing that diet soda users are still in the crosshairs. A 2005 study by the University of Texas Health Science Center showed that there's a 41 percent increased risk of being obese—and a 65 percent increased risk of becoming overweight during the next 7 or 8 years—for every can of diet soda a person consumes in a day. Admittedly, this one should be higher on the list, but I wanted to make sure the article-skimming crowd knew the score up front: that diet sodas are very much a part of the problem.

8. It's the water . . . and a lot more. Okay, so that was a beer slogan, but soda is also made up mainly of water, and when you're slinging as much of it as they are, and you need to sling it cheap, sometimes you can't help but run into problems with your supply chain. In India, Coca-Cola® has found itself in hot water, and not the kind they thought they were purchasing rights to. Two of their factories have been closed, but one continues to run amok. According to a report in The Ecologist, "They accuse the company of over-extracting groundwater, lowering the water tables and leaving farmers and the local community unable to dig deep enough to get to vital water supplies."
"Since the bottling plant was opened in 2000, water levels in the area have dropped six metres, and when a severe drought hit the region earlier this year the crops failed and livelihoods were destroyed."2

7. BPA: not just for water bottles anymore. Nalgene® and other water bottle companies took the heat when the dangers of bisphenol A (BPA) were made public a couple years back. While these companies went to great lengths to save their businesses, the soda companies somehow flew under the radar and continue to use it in their products. A recent Canadian study has found that BPA exists "in the vast majority" of the soft drinks tested. Most of these were under the national limits set for toxicity, but some were not. And remember how much soda the average person consumes, meaning odds are most soda consumers are at some risk.
"Out of 72 drinks tested, 69 were found to contain BPA at levels below what Health Canada says is the safe upper limit. However, studies in peer-reviewed science journals have indicated that even at very low doses, BPA can increase breast and ovarian cancer cell growth and the growth of some prostate cancer cells in animals."3

6. Can convenience. As in the 1950s colloquial: can it. Speaking of the 1950s, those were the happy days when most of our soda was consumed at soda fountains, obesity was a term hardly anyone had heard of, and the most feared epidemic was one of atomically mutated insects taking over the world. Now instead of hoofing it down to the corner confectionery for one soda, we fill out trucks with pallets of shrink-wrapped cans or bottles and quaff the stuff by the six-pack. Not to mention how out of balance this ensures our diets will become, it wreaks havoc on the world around us. The bottled-water industry (which is mostly owned by the soda industry) famously uses 17 million barrels of oil a year, and the aluminum industry uses as much electricity as the entire continent of Africa. Not only that, aluminum mining accounts for a ton of toxic chemicals that is left behind for every ton of the metal produced.4

5. The Frankenfood factor. Whether you consume diet or regular soda, you're getting all of the genetically modified food you need and more, via high fructose corn syrup or aspartame. Both of these are under plenty of scientific as well as anecdotal scrutiny. Findings aren't pretty but, so far, this multibillion-dollar industry has kept these sweeteners on the shelves while alternative sweeteners meeting cost requirements are explored. Since it's almost impossible to read health headlines without finding one of these ingredients in some type of controversy, I'll just use one example:
"The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety advocacy group, called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to review the claims, which stem from research conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation in Italy.
The foundation reported that rats who consumed aspartame in exceedingly large quantities were more likely to develop cancer. CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson considers this an important finding that should not be overlooked."
I know, there I go again with the cancer. But some people need to be shocked in order to take action. For me, seeing the Diet Coke® and Mentos® experiment was all I needed to swear off the stuff.

4. Foreign news cares how much soda we sell in our schools. How bad is your country's problem when the whole world is watching its daily actions? "Nearly one in three children and teenagers in the U.S. are overweight or obese and health experts say sugary drinks are part of the problem." Yep, bad. The world is well aware of the problems soda is causing and is looking to us to lead. And we certainly are trying. Are you with the program?
"Under the voluntary guidelines, in place since 2006, full-calorie soft drinks were removed from school canteens and vending machines. Lighter drinks, including low-fat milk, diet sodas, juices, flavoured waters and teas were promoted in their place."

And, while great and all, it appears that no one got the memo about diet sodas.

3. Diet? Um, that's just like your opinion, man. When it comes to soda, treat the word "diet" as a slogan. A study at Boston University's School of Medicine linked diet soda with increased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. To be more specific, the study "found adults who drink one or more sodas a day had about a 50 percent higher risk of metabolic syndrome," which is a cluster of risk factors such as excessive fat around the waist, low levels of "good" cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other symptoms that lead to heart disease and/or diabetes. And, for those of you only concerned about how you look in the mirror, "Those who drank one or more soft drinks a day had a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese."

2. Soda outkills terrorists. A study out of the University of California, San Francisco, shows that soda has killed at least 6,000 Americans in the last decade.
From ABC News: "The new analysis, presented Friday at the American Heart Association's 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, offers a picture of just how horrifying the damage done by excess consumption of sugary drinks can be.
Using a computer model and data from the Framingham Heart Study, the Nurses Health Study and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers estimated that the escalating consumption between 1990 and 2000 of soda and sugar-sweetened beverages, which they abbreviated as 'SSBs,' led to 75,000 new cases of diabetes and 14,000 new cases of coronary heart disease.
What's more, the burden of the diseases translated into a $300 million to $550 million increase in health care costs between 2000 and 2010."7

1. It's the "real thing" . . . not exactly. Should having the number one caloric source in the world come from something that's entirely manmade be a metaphor for a dying world? It doesn't have to be this way. After all, there's nothing in soda that we need. In fact, there's nothing in soda that even comes from the earth except caffeine, and that's optional. It's a mixture of altered water (injected with carbon dioxide gas), artificial flavors (yes, "natural flavor" is artificial), artificial color, and phosphoric acid, along with its sole caloric source that is a by-product of genetically modified corn production and offers virtually no nutritional value. It's about as real as The Thing.


http://www.beachbody.com/product/newsletters/nl_402.do

I stopped drinking soda, Pepsi, in 1995. How I stopped... well I got in the car one day.. one very hot day.. took a swig of pepsi and it was sooooo nasty and hott. Since that day I never drank a soda again. however.. probably once every 3 months I will have a few sips of Coke and that is enough for me. But because of that day i would never even sip a Pepsi again. All I drink now is Water, Milk, and Hot Tea

I can't stop drinking coke!!! It just tastes so good! Sometimes I drink it like 5 times a day!

i quit drinking reg soda a little over 1 year ago. i generally have 2 diets in the morning since i dont like the taste of coffee. having a reg soda now and then isnt bad for you. its call moderation and most people dont get that perpective.

My major reasons for giving up soda:

1. Have you noticed how expensive soda is?! I have trouble justifying that in my food budget.

2. Hubby can't handle caffeine or carbonation very well.

Basically, we decided to cut caffeine out of our lives together, and that took care of most pop I like to drink. I can't stand the taste of diet sodas, ANY diet sodas. I don't care what anyone says, they all taste terrible to me and I'm unwilling to "acclimate" to something that I think tastes awful. (Nor am I willing to spend money on it.)

I phased it out, and just stopped buying it all that often. I still treat myself occasionally, though. Have you ever tried soda with real sugar? I can get Coca-Cola with real sugar at our supermarket, and it is so much better than the stuff with HFCS. I'm not a big fan of Jones sodas, but Goose Island makes soda with sugar and it is really, really good. I'm not making any statements about the relative health merits of sugar versus HFCS, just noting that soda made with sugar tastes so much better. But that's a special treat that we don't do often, kinda like pizza. I'll buy some maaaaybe once every couple months, and since I can buy single bottles in the refrigerated section, I don't buy four and have them lying around. I buy one, and that's it.

I stopped drinking sodas because they were to expensive and I was retaining a lot of water weight while drinking them. Not to mention I would also depend on the caffiene till I realized they were not doing me and good period.

I was never a soda drinker until I went on vacation with a friend who was. After that vacation, I couldn't stop drinking soda and drank it for three years straight.
I am going to run a 1/2 marithon in April and since I was doing all this running, I thought that the soda thing is making me lumpy around my middle and that the soda was counter productive.
I stopped drinking it and at first, I thought about soda allot. Then I realized I was thinking about it less and less and now I don't even want a taste.
I think and this is just my thought, no scientific proof or anything but I think the sugars in the soda trigger a chemical reaction that make us crave the stuff. The sugars for me anyway were a quick boost of energy but then the crash came and I had to drink another soda and before I knew it, I found myself drinking four to five soda's a day and on bad days even more.
Good luck and hope you have a great new year.

I am a soda drinker. I do diet... right now its diet caffeine free but I will be going to coke zero. I am trying to cut down before I cut it out. Soda in the evenings actually helps me keep my food cravings and hunger at bay in the evenings so until my diet is stable and under control soda is not going away for me. I just won't drink anything other than diet.

Good luck!