Walmart, too. I’m drinking a Creamsickle fizzy water as we speak. Mmmmm!
I decided years ago to stop drinking calories (as a rule. I still have an occasional alcoholic drink, and no one yet has invented zero calorie whisky. Actually, they did. It’s called “water”. Not nearly so effective). I drink Diet Coke, unsweetened iced tea, black coffee and water (no, not all at once). Now, when a waiter accidently serves me sweetened tea I recoil at the taste. As a southerner, it pains me to say so - but there it is.
When I was in my late teens and working retail, the manager brought-in a box of donuts for the early crew preparing to open the store for a big sale. I was not a coffee drinker then, so ran down to McDonalds and got a large Coke to help wash down the donuts. About an hour later I felt horrible, and stayed feeling horrible for the rest of the day, and blamed it on the soda (the donuts probably didn’t help matters, either). That feeling left an impression on me - Since then, only the occasional soda as a treat.
I see people drinking soda all day long (like the Bladder-Buster or Big Gulp). I think drinking that much of something affects your tastes - you crave sweets all the time. I don’t think diet sodas are any healthier for that reason, because you end up consuming more sweets elsewhere.
You will be doing your health a major favor by quitting soda. I now drink black coffee and occasionally unsweetened tea with my donuts. Mostly it’s just water all day long for me.
Congrats to those who’ve quit.
Soda is next on my list.
I just quit cigs…again:smack: 7 weeks now. (2 pk/day)
I drink a ton of soda (at least a 2 litre a day), it’s pretty much my only beverage. No coffee, alcohol, only a few drinks a year.
Doing well so far, drinking a lot of water.
I’m finding I get a little tired in the middle of the day, probably from the lack of caffeine I’m used to getting at that time. Had a difficult moment yesterday when I walked into a hotel’s concierge lounge that had a fridge full of lovely cans of Coke, just there for the taking. I took a water.
I have tried many times and never have been fully able to quit soda. I’m usually 24 oz a day max. I don’t know why that has been so hard for me to quit, I think it’s just a work habit. Everybody else gets to enjoy caffeine in the morning and I’m not a coffee drinker. So I justify it that way. I did drink some yummy hot teas at work during the winter, but now that it’s summer cold carbonated beverage tastes so yummy.
The big soda-making companies are constantly switching things around with different drinks, different sizes, formula changes, and so on. They seem nervous.
I’m doing something similar; according to BMI, I’m a shade away from being overweight. Even if BMI is BS, I do have some jeans that used to fit, but no longer do, and I’m getting older, so there’s no harm in losing ten pounds.
I’m already exercising, but I’m using up the last of my sugary drinks and snacks (my diet’s gotten worse since I started working) and getting replacements, like popcorn.
How good is sparkling water? I’ve heard their actual flavor is pretty much nonexistent.
I drink seltzer with some sort of fruit or herb in it. I always have lemon or lime around. Melon & Peaches are also great. Mint leaves are good, too. Also berries or cucumbers. I just squeeze them a bit and shove them in the bottle. I don’t use sugar on the fruit. Oh - watermelon is great! And then you can eat the fizzy melons.
I still drink diet coke on occasion but I like the water better. If I need caffeine, there’s always coffee.
I drank way too much diet soda for about 20 years - for some of those years I was downing a 2 Liter every day. About a year ago I was down to about 3-4 cans a day. I was pretty addicted and badly desired a can to get through any little stress throughout a day.
It know this is a stupid reason - but when Coke Zero - what I was drinking at the time - announced that they were changing their name to “Coca-cola zero sugar”, because they figured their consumers were too stupid to know what the ‘zero’ meant - I literally reached my last straw. Not only was I paying lots of money to this multi-national company to weaken my teeth, consume weird ingredients and destroy my health but now they are going to insult my intelligence as a consumer. I’d just had enough. So I just stopped that day, all at once.
It was pretty hard at first, but I really don’t miss it or crave it anymore. Also - the first 6 months afterwards I lost about 30 lbs - for some reason dieting just wasn’t very hard (like usual). I’m guessing that my gut flora were enjoying the readjustment to life without constant mild poison. I still don’t really crave straight water much to this day - most of my liquid consumption is now unsweetened coffee or tea.
I quit soda many years ago. Not because I was being careful about sugar intake, but because I discovered it was causing nightly gastric upset. Specifically, major air or gas bubbles in the stomach, which were excruciating.
Curiously, this only happens with commercial soda pop. I can drink San Pellegrino or club soda with no ill effect.
FWIW, the change in name to Coke Zero Sugar was associated with a change in the product’s formula, IIRC some tweak to make it even closer to the taste of conventional Coke. There was actually a potential problem with the original name anyway because when you have Diet Coke and “caffeine-free” Coke being actively marketed, the name “Zero” tends to convey the impression that it has none of those ingredients, whereas it’s really just a variant of Diet Coke.
Anyway, I like the stuff. There’s some controversy about the effects of the artificial sweeteners in it on overall calorie management, but all in moderation, as they say. Now that I’m older and my metabolism is slower I try to control empty calories like sugar. I was glad to see that Nestle has a sugar-free iced tea, which is such an obvious product idea but it’s the only brand I know of that offers it.
I used to drink cokes (not capitalized for a reason) often, usually Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew. When the epilepsy dramatically made itself known (I had been having partial complex seizures for years without realizing it) my new doctor told me to stop using stimulants. Caffeine was one I had to cut back, so no more coke. I mostly drank water for the next 5 years (I will confess to drinking iced tea far more than I should have). After I had brain surgery and the epilepsy was gone for 2 years, my doctor gave me permission to drink coke again. The first sip of Mountain Dew in 7 years was my last. Ugh! How could I drink that syrup? I have discovered that I don’t like any coke. They are all too sweet, and I can’t stand the carbonation. And when I see the 2-liter bottles at parties or picnics, I never feel even a twinge of longing.
It’s interesting how when you ween yourself off sweets, when you do have an occasional sweet - it is much more intensely sweet than before. I found that out as well, with candy bars (which I used to consume daily). Once I stopped that, I found most sweet things were too sweet for me. If I enjoy an ice cream, I don’t need any syrup on it. Apple pie with no additional sauce. I don’t need my strawberries dipped in chocolate. The sweetness from fresh fruit is plenty sweet now. The occasional candy bar now is more than sweet enough.
For me, it’s the bite of carbonation I love. You’re used to a lot of sweetness, so you might want to switch to plain water for a while to reset your tastes. Then, when you treat yourself to “soda,” drink one of the sparkling waters that have flavor added. My current favorite is ice-cold grapefruit-flavored Bubly.
I keep an insulated container full of cold water near me at home, and another one at my desk at work. It’s filtered tap water and tastes good, but sometimes I add a squirt of lemon juice. I might get a craving for soda, but the water is within reach, so that’s what I drink. No sodas for years now.
I mostly gave up sugary pop when I was a student and drinking way too much. After a week of diet soda, the sugared stuff tasted overly sweet anyway.
Never drank much juice or iced tea. I think diet soft drinks are not unhealthy, but water is probably better. I used to like Crystal Light but don’t drink it much now. Aqua Fresca would be the tastiest and healthiest alternative.
Someone told me the other day that putting half a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in flavored sparkling water brings out the fruit flavor. I haven’t tried it yet but I will. I go through a lot of it. Polar Seltzer, LaCroix, Hint, bubbly, Talking Rain, it’s all good. I do still usually have a couple of diet sodas a day though. Usually Coke Zero or Pepsi Zero, I like them both.
I still drink one or two sodas on the weekend as a treat, but during the week I’ve given up soda completely. I just switched to water, maybe with a bit of lemon. The soda tastes better when I have it less frequently.
Diet soda tastes like poison to me. I’d turn it down as a drink even if I were quite thirsty and there was no water.
I’m curious whether this is an outdated impression from many years ago, or if you’ve tried diet drinks since the formulation change years ago to a mix of aspartame and acesulfame potassium. I used to feel exactly the same way about diet soda – couldn’t stand the stuff – but the modern formulations (specifically in Coke Zero, but I’ve had other diet drinks, too) taste just fine to me. I think part of the trick is that the two artificial sweeteners have different taste profiles and that particular combo has a net effect more like sugar than any single artificial sweeter is capable of. Plus they may have gotten better at other aspects of diet soda formulation.