Kick the soda addiction?

Hi. Former Coca Cola addict and successful loser here. Coke was my staple 'stress relief' or what I turned to when there was a 'need'. I was on 1-2 cans per day (all the budget allowed) PLUS adding sugar to my breakfast cereal PLUS a couple of cups of tea a day with more sugar (1-3 teaspoons). One day I went ENOUGH ! Went cold turkey on the Cola and the added sugar. I had lemon AND lime (1/8-1/4 of each to a bottle of water - about 2 cups worth of water), and started walking 20-30kms per week. That first week was not too wonderful. A lot of warm/hot (not scalding hot - causes fainting) baths. Shakes a little 3-4th day but I have not turned back. Lost 10kg (22lb) from March to June before joining MFP.

As for no sugar on cereal or in my tea - my taste buds got the hang of it

Disclaimer: seek Dr's advice as I am not a medical professional. But I am a winner who has lost ! Currently, I am at 1lb from my goal weight !

I went from regular to diet....and I'm still trying to figure out that next step.

I may just have to go cold turkey.

I went from regular to diet....and I'm still trying to figure out that next step.

I may just have to go cold turkey.

Same here. I doing MiO and so far it's okay. Only 3 days into it. I don't eliminate diet cokes but I'll sub 1 of the estimated 2-3 I usually drink for water. Hope to get it down to 1 / day, then 1 per 2 days etc...

I feel your pain on this one. I had a REALLY bad soda addiction that I'm still dealing with. I was to the point where I was drinking literally a 2 liter a day. The absolute best thing I can tell you is to NOT quit cold turkey, it will drive you insane and you'll end up caving in to the addiction. I usually drink about 2 cups of coffee every morning and that suffices my cravings for caffeine. Another thing to do is when you are really craving soda hardcore, go get yourself one, but do NOT buy a 2 liter. Make sure its a 20 oz. because having a 2 liter around will only tempt you into drinking the whole thing. I hope this helps!!!

As far as CAFFEINE goes, yes ... be VERY careful. I still have tea which has caffeine. It was the SUGAR hit I was going cold turkey.

Here is the method to support my reasoning for me Re: SUGAR: http://sweetpoison.com.au/ - plenty of other links googling sugar poison. It is not sugars specifically - my research took me to cut back on what everyone told me to cut back on anyway - just took me years to get to that point.

Tea or black coffee :-)

I used to drink three a day. I wish I could say I instantly dropped weight when I stopped them but I didn't. Find something to drink that you like, like tea. I loveee black tea. So I drink it now instead with lemon.

I used to drink pop all the time..especially at work . But I stopped by first drinking diet with my alchoholic bevarages! Now I do not drink all the time but it was a little 'bump' that got me used to the taste. And now I drink water with lemon slices, maybe one diet a day and I also find that V8 fruit juices are great also!!! Now if I drank Mt. Dew, I get the worse acid reflux ever an that totally turns me off. Just make baby steps if you drank them all the time because everyone's body reacts different.

So Yesterday I drank Pepsi MAX and it was not too bad - Not the REAL Pepsi - but tolerable..

I've tried several times, including a few months ago... I think this one will stick. Here's what worked for me:

1) Cold turkey, no more soda. Don't dwell on it, just don't ever drink another one (I personally can't moderate soda)

2) Go absolutely out of your way to have truly exciting alternatives. Forget counting calories for a while, don't worry about the financial cost, and stick to one goal at a time (quitting soda - you can go back to other goals, like only water or saving money, after you've dedicated yourself to breaking a difficult addiction). Stock the fridge with exciting, non carbonated, healthy (but still exciting) drinks. I liked coconut water with floaty coconut thingys in it, Naked smoothies, lemonade, Sobe, Arizona tea.

3) Go absolutely out of your way to have those alternatives at home, when you go out with friends, at work, everywhere. When friends order soda, always order lemonade, tea, a smoothie - something exciting.

4) Make yourself accountable, somehow. What worked for me was finding a few people on Twitter who wanted to quit soda, too. (you've got MFP here, thank goodness!). Then I felt like I needed to not drink soda to hold up my end of a team effort.

After just two months of no soda, I don't have to try so hard to not crave it... the craving goes away. I drink water more naturally now instead of having to have lemonade, tea, sobe, etc. But I won't let myself have even a single soda, or I'll start craving it again. Isolating truly only one thing at a time works pretty well.

Good luck!! You can do it!!!

IDK why, but it makes me sad to hear people are quiting soda. Love the stuff.


ANYWAY, good luck with quiting it. Going cold turkey can be pretty hard because of the headaches, because the lack of caffine. Really, you need to slow yourself down from maybe 2 a day, to 1, to one every other, one only on weekends, then never

First, if you have 90 minutes to spare, go watch "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" on Youtube. If you're like me, you'll never want to drink soda again. I immediately switched from regular to diet sodas. I lost 40 pounds just doing that (i.e. avoiding sugar in general, which for me is all the soda I was drinking). I wasn't trying to lose weight but I noticed it was magically going down steadily. Win!

I noticed you get used to diet soda really fast. I had to ask people a lot of times if this was really diet or not and when they tasted it they were like "eww! It's diet."

Later on, my eye was twitching and I knew it was the caffeine. I also had problems sleeping whenever I had caffeine after noon. I also lost a lot of energy whenever the caffeine wore off. Since I didn't stock soda or coffee at home, I was going out to eat all the time just to get a caffeine fix. So I decided to switch to just water. I have one of those water coolers that you can put 5 gallon jugs on. It costs me only $1 to refill them and it's filtered and nice and cold.

I quit the caffeine cold turkey. I only started to get a little bit of a headache the first two days. I only took one excedrin (contains 65 mg caffeine) in order to taper down the first day.

You can also get used to water really fast.