Thoughts on soda?

I am a huge Dr. Pepper addict! When I started counting calories and exercising more I completely cut soda out of my diet. I don't even drink the diet because I can't stand the way it tastes. I would have thought this alone would have led to some weight loss, but sadly, it hasn't. I still have intense cravings for it, to the point that it's all I can think about since I have told myself I can't/shouldn't have it. I drink a lot of water and so am wondering if it's o.k. to have one once in a while. I don't want to sabotage my weight loss efforts by drinking it but really haven't noticed any significant improvement since cutting it out. Any thoughts?

Besides that it's empty calories and you could be drinking something much healthier in place of it, it's not going to sabotage your weightloss efforts as long as it's within your calories for the day.

There is nothing wrong with drinking soda or eating chocolate or cookies or chips or what have you every once in a while. You are making a lifestyle change, something you want to be able to stick to for the rest of your life. If that change is made easier by the knowledge that Dr. Pepper can still be an albeit smaller part of that lifestyle, then so be it. There is nothing at all wrong with that.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if your cravings lessen over time. A combination of your body losing its taste for soda and your own happiness about your continued weight loss may do away with that need altogether. But in the meantime? In moderation, Dr. Pepper is fine. Not everything you eat has to have dietary value. It's asking an awful lot of anyone to suggest they go cold turkey forever on the things they most love to eat or drink. The idea is to create a love of healthy foods, and that is more easily done if the stuff that isn't so healthy is not absolutely taboo.

Look at it this way... a 8 oz glass of Dr.Pepper has

Calories 100

Calories from Fat 0 % Daily Value *

Total Fat 0g 0%

Saturated Fat 0g 0%

Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 35mg 1%

Total Carbohydrate 25g 8% Dietary Fiber 0g 0%

Sugars 25g

Protein 0g

I wouldn't be surprised if these values where quite close to a lot of those 100 cal packs that some people swear by.

As long as you don't overdo it.. everything can fit into your diet. ;O)

Best of luck to you,

Mike

They make the little short cans now.  Maybe you can get you a six pack of those and have one or two a week.  Sodas, in general, aren't good for you, but moderation, moderation.  I looooove Dr. Pepper, but I only get one when I go home to Texas :)  (and then I get a gigantic one).

One soda once in a while isn't going to destroy your diet.  When I first started dieting a while back, I loved pepsi.  I had to have tons everyday.  I tried diet and thought it was disgusting.  Someone told me to stick with diet for a week and I would never go back.  They were right.  I cannot even stand reg soda now.  I drink one diet a day with lunch.  The bubbles help you feel fuller so you don't eat as much lunch.  This is the meal I tend to go overboard with.

I say steer clear of the stuff. Nothing good can come from drinking the stuff. But if you gotta have it, then drink responsibly.

how long have you cut soda out for?  do you drink it daily?

i'm personally going to advocate dropping soda because i found it helped me retrain my tastebuds tremendously.

i quit daily soda around 5 years ago and it took me about a month to get rid of the cravings/headaches fully.  after that my sweet tooth died down a lot and i learned to enjoy natural sugars, such as fruits.  weight loss was not noticible at first but steadily kept dropping year after year.  it helped me learn to eat more cleanly and i have never regained any weight since.

I never had a problem with soda. I would slowly cut down on the amounts by limiting myself daily and then weekly. I know when I started cutting down on coffee I would get real bad headaches. Now I only drink my coffee in the morning. Now I sleep better.   

I still have soda once in a while, but not regularly and over time I think it's helped me to tame my sweet tooth.  It did take a while to get over the "need".  I ended up cutting down for sodium reasons, I realized that by drinking diet regularly I wasn't having calorie problems but consistently hitting 200-300% of my daily sodium recommendations.  I cut down processed foods enough that I can "save up" 100 or so calories and have some regular soda (8 oz, not 12 or 20 oz!) for a treat and still have a pretty balanced diet.  So some days I have pretzels, some days it's chocolate and some days soda.

I'm gonna go with the "everything in moderation" theme.  I've just decided that I'm the type of person that if I tell myself I can't have something, it's all I want.  So my plan is that if I limit myself to maybe one or two a week, that eventually I won't want it at all.  At least that's what I'm hoping for!  Too bad I can't be addicted to something healthy like broccoli :b  Anyone else have that one thing they just can't/don't want to live without?

I can't do without coffee. I'm sure it's doing a number on my kidneys, but I can't give up my coffee. I also can't do without bread. I eat about 6 slices of bread a day, albeit low-cal bread.

The key is all things in moderation.  Do not deprive yourself of the things you truly enjoy life is to short.  You must learn to live with less of what you enjoy, not w/o.  Rememeber anything in massive doses causes cancer in lab rats.

I had addition to coke. I had drank the stuff from the time I was 3 years old until I was 36 on a daily basis. There have been YEARS that all I drank was soda...no water...no juice...no milk...just coke. I started thinking about my health last year, and in August, I had one last coke and just quit. It took 4 months to get rid of headaches (every day around noon, I'd get a headache for an hour or so)...it took 6 months to get rid of the craving. If I had given in to my craving....in moderation...that would have been one of my biggest mistakes..because my brain would have redefined moderation over time to the point where coke would have been my only drink again. I drink water now most of the time. I feel better too. I won't allow myself even a taste of coke now-a-days but I do have a sprite a few times a week but the craving and the addiction isn't there with sprite.

Try some of the other diet sodas. Some of the newer ones are a lot different than the "classic" tastes. Diet Dr. P is definitely a noticeable change from the full sugar version, but Coke Zero and Sprite Zero are favorites of my "I don't like diet soda" friends. I prefer the sharp, biting, fizzy taste of Diet Coke myself, but the syrupy Coke Zero taste is pretty good, too, and I swear I couldn't tell the difference in the Sprites.

i gave up 'soda' (in Canada we call it 'pop') in September 2007 and hadn't seen results till Christmas. I had lost about 5 lbs, but that was about it. Maybe you're taking in extra calories in food instead of in pop? i'm not sure, you still might be able to loose a few.

Remember garbage in--garbage out.  Be patient.

i've never been a regular-soda drinker, but i was a diet-soda addict!

i've been trying SO hard to cut them out, it's been almost a week without one but i'm DEFINIETELY feeling the withdrawal and even sometimes i feel like just throwing in the towel. there's no denying, water definetely doesn't taste as good as coke zero.. but it's just chemicals that are going to hurt your body and make it unclean.

usually when browsing for things online about foods you'll find articles saying it's good for you, and then the same amount of articles saying it's bad for you; but with soda, do you ever see any articles saying it's good? nope, just bad. that should be your first clue to give it up, or drink much less.

7 years ago, I stopped drinking everything except for water. I was a two to three 20 oz bottle of Coke a day fiend. Why not go diet? I assumed (correctly) that artificial sweetners would continue to support my craving for something sweet - even though the soda itself was diet. I've convinced other friends to break off from diet soda and they've all reported a decrease in sugar craving (obviously a very unscientific study).

How much Coke did I drink on a regular basis? How about more than 250,000 calories per year! That's three 20 ounce bottles per day, 365 days per year. Unfortunately, my theory didn't work out - I figured when I stopped consuming that many calories per year, I'd drop from 215 lbs to 87 lbs in just 3 months...for some reason, it never happened...

Stay safe,

Rb

soda is a waste of calories, it is straight sugar. I stopped drinking pop in november and i have no desire to go back to drinking it. this is my logic

120 calories of pop or 120 calories of chocolate icecream?

120 calories of pop or 120 calories of chicken?

i love food way to much to spend wasteful calories on drinking pop. plus its not beneficial to your diet whatsoever

Growing up I never drank soda. This past summer I became a huge diet coke fan though. But when I left for college this past fall I gave it up religiously until finals week haha. But I have once again stopped drinking it. I sometimes indulge when I am getting a craving for something carbonated or when I am out to eat, but for the most part I have found it pretty easy to stay away from. 

Personally however, I think that regular soda is a waste of calories, even though I know the artificial sweeteners in diet soda are bad for you.