I’ve been trying to get healthier. I’ve been seeing a nutritionist and going to the gym more. It’s been going great overall. So I decided to quit sodas.
I generally drink about 3 Diet Cokes a day. I started cutting way back. I made it past the headache stage. Now my stomach hurts and I’ve got zero energy. It’s like gravity doubled. I almost called in sick today.
For those who had similar experiences, how long til this period is over. It makes me want to start drinking Cokes again.
Sounds like your problem is caffeine, not the fizzy drink.
Well, the caffeine is the part I’m trying to cut out.
I’ve heard that a good way to break the habit is with lightly-flavored sparkling water that still gives the nice cold fizzy bubble-sting sensation but contains no caffeine and only a fraction of the sugar. Basically, simulate the soda experience, but without its harm.
If you were only on diet soda already what was your reason? Are you trying to eliminate caffeine? I went from drinking multiple cokes (real ones) to none with no problem at all. Other than water I drink unsweetened iced tea with lemon so I’m still ingesting caffeine.
Ai yi yi.
Good luck.
This is a hard thing to do.
3 a day is NOT that bad, though.
Thanks, I think I’ll need it. <3
Do you mean, why was I drinking Diet Cokes in the first place? Because I like the bubbly sting and the taste.
Coke Zero is the same thing without caffeine. That may scratch the itch.
Caffeine’s a lot easier to stop if you do it very gradually; and it’s generally possible to not have a headache stage at all. Did you go from three cokes a day to two and a half for a couple of days, then to two, and so on, taking maybe a couple of weeks to taper off entirely? Or did you try to stop all at once or within two or three days?
It’s also possible that the stomach pain is from something else entirely. Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?
ETA: I’ve never drunk enough soda to have to quit it; but I used to quit coffee every once in a while.
The tap water in my first apartment was potable and safe. It tasted awful. So, I drank a lot of my favorite diet soda, diet Mountain Dew. I neglected to take into account the amount of citric acid in Mountain Dew and that I (seriously) drink two to four times the amount of liquid per day that the average person does.
I switched to real fruit syrup with no artificial anything. These are big glass bottles sold at the Soviet market in my old neighborhood. A little bit added to a glass of tap water is pleasant without adding too much sugar or calories.
After a few years, I switched to Mio. My favorite is the fruit punch flavor.
On Preview
Try Bubly, It is flavored seltzer without calories or caffeine.
If cutting back on caffeine is your goal, rather than cutting back on fizzy drinks, then stopping cold turkey is the fastest way to do so. As you’re finding out, caffeine is physically addictive. Either suffer through it, or dial it down gradually.
Regular “Coca‑Cola Zero Sugar” has caffeine. You need to find “Coca‑Cola Zero Caffeine Free”. The latter is often harder to find.
Are you using caffeine in other ways, not just Coke?
Strong agree on this. I try to buy it when I see it since sometimes I want a Rum and Coke, but I don’t need the calories or the caff.
Back to the OP, to be clear, was the Diet Coke your only source of caffeine, or was it 3 Diet Cokes a day PLUS coffee/tea or other sources? I used to be up to 5 or so such drinks a day (mostly coffee and iced tea), and cut back to 2 or 3, and find that works for me personally. I’ve done it both ways at different times in my life, the cold turkey and the taper. The taper worked fine (reduced by half rounding up each week so the per day was 5 to 3 to 2 to 1). When I went cold turkey, I was very much it was the sort of exhaustion/I want to sleep all the time you mention, at least after the headache passed. It lasted maybe a week, week and a half, though I was much younger then.
I have back pain so i take a lot of Excedrin I used the Migraine formula because it seemed to work better. It’s basically Excedrin with caffeine. But no tea or the like. I’ve also since cut that out.
My wife used to drink a LOT of cola drinks when we first met up. Then we attended a retirement seminar where one of the speakers was a dietician who described what that stuff does to your system and what the long-term effects of it are. She quit drinking that shit immediately and hasn’t gone back. Do yourself a favor and stick with it.
Yes, that’s it. Ugh. Unfortunately I’m not young…
I bet that’s the bigger issue, looking at my bottle of “store-brand” Migraine relief, each single caplet has 250mg acetaminophen, 250mg aspirin, and 65mg caffeine. That means each one was equivalent to a small (8oz) cup of brewed coffee or more, or nearly 50% more caff per capsule than your entire 12oz diet coke. So if you had even 4 a day, you were at (65x4) + (3x46) = 398mg Caffeine. Of a recommended daily allowance of no more than 400.
I’m not surprised.
For the record, yeah, when I was doing cold turkey, I also went from a near max-allowed to nothing. You’ll get there, but I won’t bet on how long before the exhaustion goes away.
Thanks, I appreciate the encouragement.
I’m very sorry. I have misunderstood your OP.
If getting off caffiene is your goal, I have nothing useful to offer. As is sometimes the case among the neuro spicy, caffeine doesn’t affect me the way it does other people. On one medication, ingesting an entire bottle of Bosco coffee syrup over less than 48 hours made it somewhat hard to focus. Other than that, caffeine usually has no effect on me at all. For many years I would make a weekly trip to Wawa, buy three bottles of vanilla latte, drink them on the way home, and then go to sleep.
So, I got nothin’.
It’s a combination of all that is bad with sodas. But primarily the caffeine, Herr Doktor.