Gave Up Soda Pop
So the first morning with out soda went really well had about a quart of ice tea this morning.. (unsweetened) I will up date after work
Sometimes it’s good to go at it gradual, if you tend to have ALOT of pop. Me, I still have pop on occasion but last summer I decided to challenge myself to not buying any pop for the summer. It wasn’t just the fact that I was concerned about how much I was drinking, it was also the money factor. I had particular types of pop that I was addicted to (A&W Cream Soda, Jones Apple Soda, Blue Mountain Dew, Faygo Peach.) Now, while I still drink pop I stay away from the ones I listed, and the only pop I drink is 7Up and Squirt, and I tend to put MIO in it. Also balancing out the replacement of pop with juice (I mean the real stuff, not the crap that has more chemicals then real juice.) as well as tea and water is also good. And eating fruit too!
I kicked my soda habit about 15 months ago. I drank a lot of regular coke and pepsi, starting at breakfast and I rarely was without one. But I made a commitment to improve my diet and decided to kick the soda habit. I’d tried before using water and flavored seltzer, but I never really liked them and it never stuck. But I started drinking iced tea and found I liked it so much (and loved the variety in flavored teas), that I didn’t get bored and it wasn’t hard for me to stick with not drinking soda this time.
A few tips that worked for me – I always have at least one and usually more pitchers of iced tea in the refrigerator. Bad tea makes bad iced tea too, so splurge on your favorite teas for iced tea – it’s still cheaper than when I was buying soda.
I got a travel cup and some thermoses and I bring iced tea to work with me. When I visit family, I’ll often bring a bunch of iced tea to drink there (and enough to share). When I go out I can usually get iced tea, or else I’ll look for a healthier alternative (club soda mixed with some juice). The money I saved and the weight I lost were a nice reinforcement.
When I travel, I’ll try to bring a travel mug with an infuser and some of my favorite loose tea (or even tea bags).
Good luck, you can do this!
well day one is darn near done.. I really didn’t have the crazy craving i thought I would have.. I kinda wanted a cola about 6pm but just pushed on.. I have 3 2qt jugs for the fridge one I take to work.. Hot tea in the morning and in the evening.. Doing OK I think.. Thanks for the advice
Good work! :) Keep trying. I suspect near the end of the week will be toughest, so just keep telling yourself why you want to cut back and keep the iced teas on hand and you’ll make it.
So. Soda. Me. Not friends anymore.
From the time I was 8 years old, I think I drank only soda. Ballooning during my school years to at one time being a fat little roly poly topping 300 lbs. All the while jiggling about happily consuming that sugary concoction. I think at one point I could easily down a 12 pack of soda a day, and this continued for years.
Marketing, commercialism, restaurants, soda soda soda…. I think I drank soda until I was 24, and that was the first time I stopped. I’d moved up to Canada to be with my girlfriend (now my wife), and circumstances just so happened that we couldn’t afford soda. So I stopped. I went through it all, withdrawal, headaches, shakes, misery before that time unknown to me. However, after a few weeks. The pounds were falling off like noone else’s business, and strangely, I found activity much easier. I was no longer consuming gallons of poison a day. Yes, in my mind soda is now pretty damned close to poison. Just dropping soda I went from around 320 lbs to 250 lbs.
Point of me spouting all that? Soda is bad, mmkay? It really is. It’s amazing they’re allowed to put it on store shelves. So to anyone giving up soda, you have my full support and congratulations. If you’ve been an addict to it, hopefully soon you’ll feel the benefits of not dragging your body down with it having to process all that excess crap. :P
I used to drink 6 or so regular pops a day. That’s 840 calories. Once I realized it, I switched to diet soda. 0 calories. I don’t know if the complaints that artificial sweeteners actually make you gain weight are true but I certainly did not lose any weight when switching.
I am now down to two pops a day. The rest is tea. I almost always add one packet of Splenda to the cup. That is apparently 1/4 of what they put in pop. I no longer apologize for adding one packet as I like the flavor enhancement of a little sweetener, yet I do feel better about cutting down.
Strangely, I do not add sweetener to iced tea.
One thing I find really helps me avoid soda is to pour tea into single serving bottles and keep them in the fridge. Much of the reason I drink Diet Mt Dew, besides the caffeine, is it is so darn easy. So now I am starting to keep unsweetened iced tea ready to grab. In restaurants I get unsweet iced tea. I know it’s usually Lipton done poorly. It’s still better than Coke.
The hardest thing in avoiding drinking soda is restaurants and and fast food. It just seems normal to get a coke or pepsi with dinner or fast food…..you almost dont think about it(at least in my case). I remember when I stopped drinking pop that was the hardest for me and my wife always had to remind me not to order pop at restaurants and drive thrus. Now I pretty much just drink Ginger Ale if any pop at all. Definetely a healthy choice to stop drinking pop. Keep up the good work
I’m in the process of trying to give up diet Coke. That has been my drink of choice for 25 of my 39 years. I have had a 32-oz. from McDonald’s nearly every day. It’s unbelievable how much diet Coke my kidneys have had to deal with. I have this huge phobia against “drinking my calories” so I don’t have a problem with drinking sugar sodas, but I know the diet stuff is bad for you too. I am not concerned about my caffeine intake. Just the chemicals. So I’m subbing wtih tea, and I’m really liking this caffeinated water, “Water Joe,” that you can get at Walgreens.
I know this is an old thread, but just reading it now. I am day 2 of trying to kick diet coke. Like you, it has been my lifetime drink of choice. So bad for me, I know…..did you kick it? Did you reduce your intake ? I worry about my kidneys, all those chemicals…..but would I ever like a diet coke now!
When I met my husband he went through packs of regular coke like they were potato chips. It was so awful! I tried so casually to encourage alternative options, even encouraged his over-sugared sweet tea as temporary replacement. When he finally decided to be serious about giving it up, it was as if he was going through serious drug withdrawals. It was not fun at all. He was not pleasant to be around. But he kept with it, and it paid off. There were a couple short-lived periods of regression, but he’s been coke (and soda pop) clean for the past few years. I can’t speak entirely for his personal experience, but I know that it helped him to have encouragement and also that I gave up soda too. I was never addicted by any means, but it was something I’d get out of ceremonial habit the few occasions that we went out to eat. It would have been much harder for him if I had the occasional soda and he didn’t. He couldn’t just have one and not feel the need to start up the habit again. So it was all or nothing.
Morning Day 2 wanted a RC Cola so bad when I woke up.. but made a pot of Assam tea it is helping.. I will post again later today is tougher then the first but I will over come and win
You can beat this! Just keep reminding yourself why you’re distancing yourself from pop in the first place, and you can do it. :)
(and if you happen to have a slip up sometime, don’t beat yourself up too much, just try again. Smokers often have to try several times before they quit for real)
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