The benifits of giving up Cola

I need some help giving up soda. I have cut down from about 16-20 oz of coke two to three times a day to 8 oz at night. I love soda. I love coke. It is so hard to think of life without coke.

What are some things that you all did to cut the soda's out of your life? I know I need to quit drinking it, but it is sooooooooooo hard.

Emily

are you drinking regular or diet?

Regular. I refuse to drink or eat anything with aspartame.

You will be addicted to it most likely.. but if you give up the cola you have more calories to play with therefore  you can eat more food! (always a good thing)

Cola has tonns of sugar in and tonns of caffine..

I don't personally like cola, so i don;t know the pain of cutting it out.

But i do suggest drinking alot less, and maybe drink a bit more water to balance it out.

maybe you could try drinking sparkling water with juice?

I too was addicted to soda. My vice was mainly Mountain Dew but I would drink any of them. On a normal day I would drink 3 to 4 cans a day. Since I have been counting I have not had a soda in about a month. The truth is, I would rather EAT my calories than drink them.

You are doing the right thing by weining (sp?) yourself off rather than cold turkey. I got headaches for a couple of days. Alot of my friends who also count will drink Coke Zero and they love it. Maybe you try that for a while.

Good Luck!

I was doing 5 or 6 cans of diet coke a day because it had little or no calories. I don't really like drinking water. The vending machine was out of coke for about a week and i was too lazy to go to the store and I began to realize that I felt allot better in general. When they loaded up the machine again, I started again and noticed that every afternoon I had indigestion and general discomfort in my stomach. Now every morning I make one of the huge coffee mugs of tea and drink that, it keeps me content until lunch. I have started drinking sparkling water with lunch and then juice and water with protein powder in the mid afternoon ( I work out at lunch time.) I have not really had a craving at all for coke and maybe I will have one now and then, but I really feel better at the end of the day for not drinking it.

I too am addicted!  I have cut it out of my weekly routine, I drink water like crazy (about 5-7 bottles per day)!  It wasn't easy but I just stopped buying it.  I treat myself on Friday nights to a glass or two with my pizza but that's it.  I truly do love the taste but I also budget my calories a head of time to be able to enjoy it.  I'm not hugh on juice, coffee or tea so it doesn't really leave me many options which is why I think I fell to Coke, iced tea is another weakness of mine but I'm learning how to make it healthier so I can enjoy it more regularly.  I usually drink iced tea for lunch and that's it, water the rest of the day.

Good luck! 

I gave it up because of a hiatal hernia.  The problem is that I love Dr. Pepper and Root Beer - but the inevitable and painful fire sensation in my chest when I drank them got me over it pretty quick.

I switched my caffeine source to coffee, which is also acidic, but not nearly as much as soda, and I weaned myself down to one cup in the morning.  The rest of the day it's just decaf tea and water.

Original Post by emilysmi:

I need some help giving up soda. I have cut down from about 16-20 oz of coke two to three times a day to 8 oz at night. I love soda. I love coke. It is so hard to think of life without coke.

What are some things that you all did to cut the soda's out of your life? I know I need to quit drinking it, but it is sooooooooooo hard.

Emily

I haven't tasted a SODA in 5 years...however I have a can of  DIET SODA once a day....ZERO SUGAR, ZERO CALORIES!

Water is good but it does nothing to enhance a meal.

i just gave it up cold turkey. I have a sip every now and then from my bf but it jus doesnt take the same. I also refuse to drink diet coke n i think it tastes nasty!!

I recently discovered vitamin water its sweetened with Stevia extract, all natural, and it tastes exactly the same as regular vitamin water only 25 calories for a bottle! gotta love tht

i read something the other day that made a lot of sense. people treat soda like water, when they should treat it like candy. soda is CANDY!

a 20oz bottle of coke has about 250 calories. a snickers bar has 270! you don't have to give up soda entirely, anymore than you need to give up candy entirely, but you do need to start treating it like what it is, a treat not a staple.

if you enjoy a coke at night as a treat, i don't see any harm in it as long as it fits into your calories. if that makes it easier for you to cut out the close to 700 calories a day in soda you used to be drinking, then that's great! 

the key to sucess is moderation. you don't have to live a life without coke if you don't want to!

Original Post by emilysmi:

Regular. I refuse to drink or eat anything with aspartame.

 I guarantee you that the long term health benefits of switching to diet coke over drinking regular coke on a regular basis is better than not doing anything at all.

Drink water. A lot of water.

Or just see where regular coke is fitting into your calorie intake and realize how much better of real meals you could be having if you cut out the soda.

In my opinion, regular soda is friggin' nasty.

Let's try another approach. Here are some things posted on a web site...I removed some of the facts that were "busted" by Mythbusters.

In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
  To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a
crumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.
  To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola
over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.
To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the
rusted bolt for several minutes.
  To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap
the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for
sumptuous brown gravy.
To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of
greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The
Coke will help loosen grease stains. It will also clean road haze from
your windshield.

FYI:
1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. Phosphoric acid also bleaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.
2. To carry concentrated Coke syrup, the commercial truck must use the hazardous material place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
3. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years.

I think someone mentioned it above, but my husband and I love making spritzers from fresh fruit juice and seltzer water.  You have complete control over how much juice you add, and therefore how many calories you wish to consume.  You can get so many interesting types of juice these days as well...I'm a big fan of ones like pomegranite, which have a very strong flavor in a small amount of juice.  You can usually find 2 liter bottles of seltzer, either with the other soda or in the alcohol section of the store, and as long as they're refrigerated, they'll last for days.  Also, some of the slightly flavored seltzers are quite good...I love the plain lemon seltzer, and that has no calories at all!

If you're needing the caffeine fix as well, I'd try brewing some unsweetened iced tea and alternating with the seltzer/spritzer drinks. 

Original Post by melika08:

i just gave it up cold turkey. I have a sip every now and then from my bf but it jus doesnt take the same. I also refuse to drink diet coke n i think it tastes nasty!!

I recently discovered vitamin water its sweetened with Stevia extract, all natural, and it tastes exactly the same as regular vitamin water only 25 calories for a bottle! gotta love tht

 My sister did it this way and it worked for her.  But I had to take a different approach.  I gradually replaced soda with water.  It took me about three weeks to get to where I didn't have a single soda in a day.  Now, I drink almost a gallon of water a day and I don't remember the last time I had a soda.

...my morning coffee is another story.

I am currently (for the past two weeks) replacing Pepsi with drinking sparkling water and juice. Cranberry works super well YUM!

It seems to be working cause I've only had two Pepsi's since I started!

Don't think of it as not allowing yourself to have a Coke - think of it strictly as making better choices. I find that the restrictive mentality gets to people. There is nothing you can't eat (unless your allergic) only things you choose to avoid. And avoid doesn't mean never :)

i switched from regular to diet back when i couldnt even handle the thought of drinking water.  it was weird at first, but now when i have a sip of my sisters regular cokes they are just way to strong for me.  they make my teeth feel all grainy and weird too.   i also started drinking water by having a big two liter bottle filled with water in my room at all times.  everyonce in a while i would walk by the bottle and just force myself to start chugging.  its a few years later and i now drink water all the time and sometimes i actually crave it.   im still a diet soda junkie, but ive limitied it to one mini bottle day.  i try to remember that drinking any soda is really just like pouring a bunch of sludge down your throat.  when you are thirsty your body wants water and instead we give it sludge.  its gross to think of it like that and it makes drinking water feel that much more clean and awesome.

Thanks everyone!!!

I really like the idea of the spritzer water and juice. The main thing that I like about the coke is the carbonation. It feels like it settles my stomach. I think I will try that one.

Also I have cut down by drinking water. That last glass a day though, I need something besides water. Maybe the spritzer will help

Ladydeathbird-- let me just say ICK! Those facts you put are super gross. I had heard a few of them, but not all.

Thanks everyone!!

I haven't drank regular soda in 3 or 4 years... I gave up sweet tea (the love of my life) and juice in November, and I gave up diet soda for lent.... now all I have left is water...

It's a matter of not wanting to drink it.  I used to be a severe cola drinker - 3,4 cans during the evening alone were no exception - but when I started to keep a food diary I reduced that to like one can in three days.  I've started to hand out the cans to other people not on a diet (my brother can eat anything and still loose weight) because I've still got a load of them stored in my room.

I'm torettox84 and I was a cola addict