SODA - Biggest addiction

Another thing about diet soda is that the arguments for it being bad for weight loss are based on a theory (never well supported) that it causes some people to crave sweets more than they otherwise would. Based on personal experimentation I know this isn't true for me, even if it is for some. There's an easy way to test this--if you struggle with craving more sweets than you want to eat while on a calorie restriction, cut out diet and see if it makes a difference. But if you are happily eating within your calorie deficit and it's a true deficit, then drinking diet soda won't interfere with your losing.

Whether there are other personal reasons to cut it is a separate question that only you can answer.

I haven't had any problem losing weight, or keeping it off while consuming diet soda. All of my inflammation issues were alleviated by cutting excessive amounts of processed carbs and sugar. As long as I take in an equal or greater amount of water, and my urine is the correct color, I drink diet soda.

Not much left to safely eat or drink if you listen to the "experts"; therefore, common sense and "If it fits your macros" all the way for me.

Growing up we never had coke (soda). My mother drank (and still does) about 5-6 cans a day and would refuse to let the kids have any so it was never a big deal. So when I turned 16 and started working at a Subway that had unlimited access to a coke machine...my life took a terrible turn. Cue me with my face under the rootbeer stream after hours. It became an addiction. If I didn't have rootbeer or some form of coke I had a headache (It was all mental, I'm sure). I was probably consuming a good 700-800 calories a day in nothing but coke and that is NOT an exaggeration (I worked long hours and we brought route 44 cups and refilled often). My weight ballooned due to this...and all the bacon I was eating. =D

When I started my weight loss journey and began working at Starbucks (Cue, 15 cups of black coffee! WOO!) I cut out coke. I went from drinking them regularly to one every few days. My Love drinks diet soda like it's going out of style so I began drinking those with him. Thennnnn I cut that out too....I'm now made fun of for ordering water at restaurants. I don't crave cokes anyone (Except the occasional diet rootbeer!) and I feel way better. It took a lot of work to stop wanting cokes and I constantly craved them at first. It took will power and begging him to put the cokes on the top shelf where I couldn't reach. But it is possible! It's all mental!

ryanhorn wrote: »

When I first gave up soda about a year and a half ago, I tried at first to cut down slowly and only limit myself to one or two a day. (I was previously drinking about a 2 liter every day!) I had a hard time though because when I'd have my one or two, I would always somehow find a way to justify having more. For me, it was best to just go cold turkey; however, I really think it depends on the person and what works best for you!

I will say though that my weight loss really skyrocketed once I stopped drinking my calories, so keep trying to do this!

Good luck!

I know not everyone agrees with ryanhorn on this approach but until I got ticked off at myself over drinking soda and left them cold turkey I kept letting them suck me back in.

For three months I have been mainly only drinking water (gallon a day due to my size) and green tea and not much coffee any more. One plus in my case is I stopped grabbing a candy bar, etc from the break room when I stopped the sodas because after a life time of doing both at the same time I must have been living for both a caffeine and sugar kick from break time.

Everyone is is different but tapering off just never works for me. In my case there was a change at 20, 40 and 60 concerning how eating/drinking different foods would impact my % of fat and health in general. Aging never made things easier in my case.

I personally quit drinking soda completely. I found if i had easy access to it, I would drink it mindlessly. Diet Dr Pepper was usually what I bought. Also I would drink it later in the evening and the caffeine made it harder for me to sleep well. I had a hard time restricting to just a little bit daily so I removed it. It was hard for the first week now I don't crave it. On the plus side I save a lot of money not buying it, especially when I eat out. Restaurants charge way to much for soda.

Haven't read all the replies so I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but I love lemon like seltzer. I know, I know, it's no soda. But if it's ice cold it's not bad and gives u the bubbly fix. At first I thought it was gross and then somehow it just grew on me. And I'm allergic to artificial sweeteners so I can't have any diet drinks or pretty much anything labeled sugar-free so I understand how hard it is sometimes to find healthier replacements.

T00GlaM0r0US wrote: »

I loove the taste of soda, diet or regular and especially when it is ice cold.

I have stopped drinking soda in the past, but after a few months I say "one wont hurt" and then I am back to where I was before.

I know cutting it out would help me tremendously, but I would rather drink soda than eat lolol.

Anyone else struggle(d) with this?? How did you overcome the addiction

THANKS

Here is a good way to get around it. Force yourself yourself to drink a gallon of water a day. After you complete that gallon you can drink other beverages of your choice. It won't leave much time or thirst for too many cokes.

I was a soda lover myself. Dr. Pepper. What made me stop was when I really start paying attention to the sugar content. Especially mountain dew and Sunkist orange. All that sugar is very dangerous to your health.

I used to drink 3-4 cans of Mountain Dew (or Dr Pepper) a day. I personally can't stand the taste of "diet" drinks, nor did I like coffee or unsweetened tea. I drank pop for the caffeine and because it was sweet and "refreshing". To begin weening myself from it, I stopped buying it. I was buying 12-packs, and I found if I didn't have them around I wouldn't go out and pick up a bottle. But the catch-22 to that was I needed something else instead. What I went on to get was the Brisk half tea/lemonade cans. They were sweet, still from a can (so the same motions as before), 1/3 of the calories and still had a small amount of caffeine, which helped me ween. My next step was that I always kept large amounts of bottled water on hand. Where I live the water has a lot of minerals and needs to be softened before drinking, but my water pressure is low enough a filter makes my sink near unusable. From this point, I've been purchasing Crystal Lite to-Go packets. For a full-flavored bottle of lemonade/punch/whathaveyou it's 10 calories, and a little bit cheaper than soda. And now the motion of drinking from a water bottle is what my body wants to do when thirsty, so I drink bottled water.

So for me, breaking the addiction was as much weaning myself from the caffeine as it was the motion of drinking pop. I still enjoy an occasional tea/lemonade mix or a soda when I go out, but I've found if I don't have it available at home I'm less likely to go pick some up if I have other beverages and choices at home.

I've decided I'm "bubbles addicted." I used to be a diet coke addict but successfully switched to naturally flavored (no sweeteners) carbonated water. Those are my "soda" of choice now and when I do drink a regular or diet soda now it just tastes cloying.

I needed to give up the diet coke because I am one of those people that reacts to it with a case of the munchies. Artificial sweeteners make me ravenously hungry. I'm much more in control when I don't drink them.

DalbozTheLantern wrote: »

I used to drink soda all the time and would get kind of anxious if I went somewhere like someone's house or to another country that didn't have it readily available. I drank it every day and nothing else, and I'm surprised I didn't screw up my kidneys.

I started cutting down when I first began watching my calories. I eventually started drinking water more and got used to it. Water makes me FEEL sooooo much better. I drink a lot of water instead of coffee in the mornings, and it helps me wake up.

I eventually realized that I cannot have soda every few days without wanting it more, so I completely cut it out which is something I never thought that I would do. I haven't missed it much and have only had one Pepsi since I quit. I was afraid that would make me want more, but it didn't.

I would suggest slowly drinking more and more water and less soda and just phase it out. Also, get a water bottle to carry around with you and maybe try to keep it cold. When I first started drinking water, I could only make myself drink it if it was really cold. Now I can drink room temperature water, and it doesn't bother me.

If I can quit soda, anyone can.

Thanks for sharing your road to no soda. It was very hard for me but now water tastes right and soda tastes wrong.

The physical addiction took a couple weeks to start fading away but did have to leave 'cold turkey' in my case. My mental addiction may still be in the back of my mind but with the physical addiction gone I do not 'need' to act on the mental addiction.

I quit soda for a year once. The thing that helped at first was first I cut out all dark sodas, sticking only to Sprite/7-Up/Ginger Ale. Then I slowly reduced that until I was down to one can every other day, then I just switched to coffee. Sadly my current roommates are Mountain Dew addicts and I picked it up again, but I'm gonna do the same thing again to see if I can cut it out again.

You can still lose weight drinking diet soda. I have lost weight in the past while still drinking soda, and I never noticed much of an impact on weight loss there. That being said, I quit drinking soda all the time at first because I wanted to stop my caffeine consumption so I could sleep better (which I do!). I started by switching to flavored water using crystal light packets or something similar, and then eventually I switched to plain water. The only time I let myself drink soda was when I went to a restaurant or fast food, and that ended up only being on weekends since I am on a strict financial budget and won't let myself eat out during the week. So I would suggest to try limiting it instead of cutting it out entirely. I currently let myself drink caffeine free diet soda, but I limit it to one glass (so probably 16oz) a day.