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Trying to become healthier
Hey everyone. I keep a pretty rigorous watch on my calories and I am a vegetarian, so a lot of my meals consist of just vegetables. I am mostly healthy, but I have the hardest time kicking my only real vice: soda. I love it, and I may even be addicted. I gave it up last year for lent, but after my 40 days I immediately started drinking it again. I'm trying to cut back my sugar intake, and I keep finding ways to rationalize drinking it. Anyone out there with tips on how I can kick it for good?
Have you tried a flavored soda water like LaCroix? Another option is to buy fruit juice like cranberry juice and cut it with 20 - 50% water. I would stay away from artifially sweetened drinks because that just keeps you craving the sweetness so your sugar addiction doesn't diminish over time compared to actually reducing the amount of "sweetness" in your overall diet. The idea is to get away from needing sweet tasting things all the time.
Thanks for responding. My girlfriend buys and drinks Polar Ice (or something like that) which is seltzer water. It's sort of bitter to me but I'm trying it out, to not much success. I also buy fruit juices and drink them with water already, I just keep coming back to soda. Perhaps if I go exclusively water or seltzer water for a bit of time I won't crave the sweetness as much?
I find that the trick to curbing bad habits is to gradually replace them with good ones. Killing a habit just leaves a void inside you that you need to fill - that isn't bad at all; we all need to satisfy ourselves with nice things!
The way I curbed soda was by getting myself used to other things that are also tasty. So first I started with drinking less every day and keeping an eye out on how much my body can 'handle' vs how much more I'm craving (if I find that my stomach starts feeling icky from all the sugar, I stop mid-can). I satisfied the craving for more soda by drinking other things, like 100% orange (or wtv) juice, sparkling water (seltzer), tea (hot or iced)... there's a ton of stuff to drink!
Then I started introducing things with 'natural' sugars into my diet, so I can get my body and my gut biome used to their taste. And by that, I mean fruits :P They're incredibly tasty, and if you don't want to take the time to prepare them (it's like 5 mins of washing and chopping though) you can buy them pre-cut at the supermarket! In the beginning you won't feel like eating them, and that's okay, you can start with a serving a week or so.
Slowly, and with just a little nudging, you'll find that you want to have the alternatives more and more, and the soda less and less. Soda actually tastes icky compared to all these other things; your body just craves the insane amounts of sugar in it, so it convinces you that it's tasty.
Also, buying a Sodastream or a soda maker and making your own is a great alternative, as long as you don't load it with sugar. Homemade ice tea is also delicious, all you need is a kettle, any tea, a lemon, ice cubes, and a fridge.
I eat a ton of fruit already, and drink a lot of juice. I have 1 to 2 sodas a day and I can't seem to find a good way to quit. The point where soda starts to get "too sugary" for me is way beyond a healthy point. Like a two liter a day or more. I think I'm too dumb too fall for these ideas haha. My body just craves it.
Aw man, sorry I couldn't help! Just so you know, I'm rooting for you :) Good luck!
Thank you! I appreciate the time you took to talk and help.
It's an acquired taste.
The more you drink it, the more you'll like it.
Time to aquire it!
I agree that there is evidence to suggest that switching to diet soda doesn't help "sugar addiction." However, if the goal is calorie reduction, and OP is dedicated to calorie counting, switching to diet soda can be very helpful for that.
I highly recommend Bubly. It's my sparkling water of choice.
I don't like the way diet soda tastes. I know it contains aspartame, but I don't know how much, and I'm not sure if your body metabolizes aspartame the same way as sugar but I was under the impression it did so it would essentially be just as bad? Thank you for the response and suggestion.
Very interesting. I'm always afraid of developing liver diseases from drinking too much sugar. Is that not a threat with aspartame? I can't imagine it's entirely safe. If it's better than sugar that is worth a shot, then.
Thank you very much for the information. I should have done my research better!
Which ones do you think taste just as good? I think all of them have a terrible bitter aftertaste. The only decent one in my opinion is Dr Pepper but even then it has a bit of bitter flavor to it and the sweet initial taste isn’t as good as sugar. I hate bitter tasting things tho so maybe I’m biased. I can’t handle any bitter beers either.
Interesting. Thanks for the advice, I’ll give those a try.
When I first started drinking diet drinks, Diet Mountain Dew was surprisingly similar, my diet soda of choice, but the more I cut sugary drinks and tried other drinks it started to taste like cardboard. Right now I drink Coke Zero Sugar which is nearly identical and most places have it.
I've never been big on soda. A lot of the time, to change those types of habits, you need to change something about your life.
I'll try to give an example, I'm a programmer, I can easily work many hours in front of the computer. When I start my day, I always have two full glasses of water. When they are empty, I always go refill them. If my life was different, I might not drink as much water. And in the past I didn't. Nowadays I never really drink anything else because it's just so convenient to drink the water that's always beside me.
Perhaps you can notice how your life works. When is it that you start drinking soda. Once you have figured that out, you can make it so that before it's time to drink soda, you have already done something else that removes your reason for drinking soda.
If for some reason your water tastes bad, and that's why don't drink water, you might look into buying some water like this. That's 5 gal. It costs almost nothing since the bottle is reusable.
If I had to pinpoint one thing, it's just that I like the taste of soda with a meal more than I like water. I am very active and healthy otherwise, I hike a lot, and at work I drink two 32-oz bottles of water every day. Maybe it's as simple as forcing myself to drink water with every single meal for a while?
I think that if you do something for enough time, it would just become normal. That's what I do personally, just drink water with every meal. (Actually I don't drink every meal, just when I feel like it.)
On a side note, this might be a cultural thing. Where I'm from, it's normal for people to drink milk in every meal, especially for dinner. I used to do that too.
I do this. Cereal for breakfast, milk with lunch and dinner, yogurt for after dinner snack. It's not even conscious, but I like the taste and it's easy calories. Dairy is so expensive here though, that I really need to start cutting it out :/
Just use half a glass of milk and drink it twice as slow. You just doubled your money. :)
I thought so, too, but I gave up soda entirely for lent last year (40 days) and had one the first day it was over. I didn't give up sugar, entirely, so I assume I retained some of the habit from that. I'll have to develop more willpower and pledge to stick to water only for a time.
Thanks for the kind words! I'm going to give it another shot. Going cold turkey starting now.
I have not. My go-to for replacing soda is to put juice and water together. It works great, it's just I get a craving at some point and cave in.
MiO Orange Tangerine 👌
Have you happened to try the coffee ones? I've been wanting to try it, just never do.
I agree with this, it's about setting up a habit. I do the same. First thing I do when getting in to work is get a glass of water. I also leave a 2 litre bottle next to my bed, so that I can drink whenever I am thirsty. Finally, I rarely drink anything with a meal. I feel that is when I most want orange-juice, or coke.
I do drink soda every once in a while, but only when I'm feeling tired and need the sugar/caffeine.
You also mention (and some others have noted) that you have sugar in some of your other foods. It may be worth trying to reduce the amount of sugar you eat generally and start to treat sweet things as 'dessert'. One of the things that I find have sugar in that I'm actually not that fond of are the tomato-paste/sauces. But a lot of canned goods have sugar in them.
Good luck!
I've never been strong on sugar. Even as a kid, I would go around Halloween to collect candies. I was the one that would go in every neighborhood and collect up to 3 full bags of candies. But I would never actually eat them. Dessert too, my mom was never strong on dessert. She was good at it, but she was more about soups + dinner.
I think this is what has helped me always stay fit without much work.
Yep, same with us. Our treat growing up was sparkling water. As such I've come to treat sparkling water and soft-drinks as a treat to have every once in a while. This doesn't mean I am always healthy, I definitely go on unhealthy feasts every once in a while.
Near the start of the year I gave up fizzy juice and pretty much everything but water. It really sucked for about 2 days I had these awful headaches and it took nearly a week for the cravings to go away (sugar is a harsh mistress) but it does go away.
My advice is just to go cold turkey, if you have a weekend to yourself that should make it easier and make sure to drink lots of water the entire time. Get a decent water bottle and just use it all the time, take it everywhere it's feasible to take it. The thing to remember is it's still okay to have it once in a while and it will just be the rare treat it's supposed to be, treat it like you would alcohol it's nice once in a while but you wouldn't pick up a beer on the way to work so ignore the coke the same way.
I actually quit drinking alcohol entirely a year ago. It was not a probably for me and I've sipped a beer a few times since then and actually disliked it entirely. I'm having a much harder time with soda, unfortunately. I'm going to try to cold turkey approach again, even though it hasn't worked (in perpetuity) for me in the past.
Honestly, I just hate feeling thirsty and I noticed that soda keeps me feeling thirsty. Drinking some nice, ice cold water tends to leave me feeling refreshed, though, so I just naturally started kicking the soda addiction. In other words, the feeling of thirst was a strong enough disincentive to discontinue drinking soda and the refreshing effects of water a strong enough incentive for me to start drinking more water instead. That combination of incentive and disincentive is what allowed me to make that change.
Odds are you just need something similar. Find something that bothers you about the soda in a very tangible way, and find an alternative that you enjoy that makes you naturally want to switch. For example, if the only disincentive is the sugar content and you find that you can't incentivize yourself to drink non-flavored beverages, then as has already been suggested, find an alternative flavored beverage that lacks the high sugar content.
I understand what you're saying. I've analyzed this incentive, disincentive relationship before, I have success following through though. I know that I don't want to drink it, it's bad for me, and I don't want the high sugar content, but I typically find a way to excuse that. "It's just one," or "you don't have any other unhealthy vices so it's not that bad." Then I end up having it again. I need to find further incentive or commit strongly to just quitting for the sake of health.
Yeah, the trick with "it's unhealthy" or "there's so much sugar" as disincentives is that these disincentives aren't really tangible. You know they're true, but you can't really feel or see it right in front of you.
It would probably be effective, for example, if you could actually see the sugar content in the bottle, like if soda had all of its ingredients separated into distinct layers and had to be shaken before drinking. But that's just not the case.
So the question you'll need to ask yourself is, "what bothers me about soda that is tangible and what good alternative doesn't have that problem?"
Another way of thinking about it is, what kind of immediate short-term problems does soda have that you'd like to do away with? Focusing on short-term problems (e.g. it doesn't quench thirst effectively) rather than long-term problems (e.g. it's unhealthy) means you'll be focusing on ways it's inconveniencing you now, which is easier for our lizard brains to deal with.
I think I might gain success with the "thirst" issue. I do a lot of physical activity, so I feel hydrated when I drink water and after exercise I have a strong aversion to soda. Maybe working out more, or with the idea that it soda may even hurt the efficiency of my workout, may be able to curb my appetite. Thanks for the talk!
Working out sounds like a great way to do it. Even better is if you find a good reason to work out more that isn't related to soda so that you're just cutting soda as a side benefit. That can be a powerful tool to have at your disposal.
And no problem. This is a completely different problem space from what I'm used to dealing with, so it's interesting to try to think of ways to conceptualize and approach the issue. It's an enjoyable exercise for me :)
Well I'm actively trying to strengthen my core to counteract some lower back issues I've been having, so perhaps I can get myself to commit to strengthening that, and the soda will fall off as a result. It's worth a try.
Well, good luck on both of those fronts. I hope your back ends up being kind to you and that you have some success kicking that soda addiction :)
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words and support. I guess I can update y'all if anyone cares. We'll see how I do!
You likely are addicted to sugar.
This video changed my thinking about sugar.
I don't have an hour to commit to watching this at the current moment, but I'd enjoy checking it out if it changed your mind about it. Thanks for the resource.
I'm a total fiend for soda water. Ended up making a little setup at home with a 5lb co2 tank. Costs me about $20 to make 300+ liters. Totally satisfies the soda craving for me, and it's just water with a bunch of bubbles. I rarely make any with sugar, but when I do it's more for electrolytes than anything else. I mix in a small amount of Gatorade powder when I know I'm gonna be working in the sun.
I have no idea what this is. It sounds a little bit like seltzer water but you make it at home? Do you have any information about it I can look into?
It might seem like a weird solution to your problem. Seems like most people are suggesting approaches to change your mentality, which is probably the most functional way if it works for you. I tend to have a pretty addictive personality, and quitting things rarely works well for me. I usually have to replace them with something less destructive, and eventually replace that, and so on until I work my way out. I drank soda constantly, but I got to the point that I didn't want so much sugar all the time. I always liked how much more bubbly club soda was than sugary soda, so I started drinking club soda.
So that said, yea, it's just seltzer water. (I think club soda has some kind of sodium added to it.) No calories, nothing added, I just use some filtered water and shake a bunch of CO2 into it. The CO2 dissolves into the water and gives it the bubbles. The amount that can dissolve into the water depends on water temperature and additives. If there are no additives and the water is nice a cold, it's the ultimate bubbly water. Seriously, it actually gets difficult to drink past a certain point.
The most popular consumer product for DIY soda water is the sodastream, but they are a wasteful and expensive proprietary solution. Cheaper up front, but higher cost-per-unit. The setup I use has a bit higher of a startup cost (around $100 unless you can find a tank for cheap), but you can basically make as much soda as your heart desires. For me, it's a lot. I go through probably two or three liters a day, give or take. But the tank usually lasts me about 5 or 6 months. Costs $15-20 to fill up.
It can be difficult to see the "why" because of the high startup cost and the oddity of having what looks like a welding tank laying around. It's probably not for everybody. I just like fizzy water too much. It wasn't even about the sugar from soda, it's all about the drink having a "bite" to it, if that makes sense. When I compare how much I spent on sodas vs how much I spend making my own, it starts to make sense though. If I count the cost of a tank (which I actually already owned), I think I've spent a total of, say $200. That would be setup cost, plus 5 fills. That comes out to over 1500 liters of soda. Granted, if I didn't have this setup, my consumption wouldn't be that high, but I would probably still break $200 worth pretty easily.
The setup I have is basically shown on this page under The Carbonator. (After taking another look, seems like startup cost is more like $150 altogether. Either the cost of the equipment went up or my memory sucks. I think my memory just sucks.)
Thanks for taking the time to type this out! I drink some seltzer, and the bubbles aren't actually what do it for me. I get what you say about the "bite." I do enjoy the crisp refreshment you get from a fizzy drink. I think I simply like the taste of soda a lot.
I just stopped cold turkey. I just started keeping nothing but water and so that's all I had to drink. Now all I keep is water, milk, and Earl Grey. I think a big part of it is just not keeping it in the house.
You're right. Part of my lack of willpower and walking to the gas station at the end of the street and buying a bottle when I want one. I need to cut that behavior out entirely.
I've been trying to stop drinking so much soda (pop, where I'm from ;-)), too. I've been drinking the 8oz V8 Energy tea juices. They're still juice, so a crap ton of sugar, but none added and it's cut with green tea.
They're 11g of sugar vs 39-46g in common sodas. So, not the healthiest suggestion out there, but it's what I'm doing!
I usually drink a 20oz soda at a time, which is closer to 65-75g per serving. 11g would be great for me. I like juices a lot, I'll have to give it a try!
Maybe try watering down your soda. It can be with actual water, ice or a healthier juice (though I would be careful on the last one). Start with a little and increase the ratio of water as you go. And drink out of a smaller glass, so you notice yourself refilling.
Watering down soda sounds disgusting. Maybe I can train myself to dislike it that way.
I wouldn't water it down too much. Not enough to really notice. Just a bit at a time. And if you've ever orders soda from diners and it didn't come in a can, it's been water down at least a bit.
I honestly don't trust myself enough to drink it watered down without just going back to drinking it full on.