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My Year Without Soda Pop
On January 1, 2008 I had a can of Coke. For the rest of the year I did not have another drop of soda. I did not swear off sugar. I still drank Gatorade or Powerade sometimes after a workout. Sometimes I had Snapple or some other brand of iced tea with a meal. For the most part though I stuck with water for everyday meals, fruit juice as something different or grabbed a beer after work. Beer isn't the healthiest but I'm not worrying about calories. I wanted to start to limit my sugar intake and this was a good first step.

As with quitting smoking it completely changes what you deem "good". When I smoked smoking made me feel good. Quitting smoking meant that feeling good was part of a different mindset. Instead of the sweet taste of a cigarette it was exercise. By cutting out soda from my diet sugar felt less good. I still crave it with certain meals but now it's not the only option I want. Water is fine. A year ago I would not have been able to drink water with Indian food or a burrito (yes, those aren't exactly the healthiest foods...I'm trying to do this in steps). I now associate pizza with beer instead of soda. It's about slowly changing your mindset. Another example of this is bread. I switched over to wheat bread sometime in the past year or so. Before that I thought wheat bread was disgusting. Now I look at bleached white bread and it doesn't look appetizing.

The side effect of all of this is that eating more healthy in one aspect of your diet pushes you to do the same in others. For one, water might go well with meals but it doesn't even compare to soda and a bag of chips and dip. So I don't eat chips and dip as much. Also, the more you eat healthy the more something unhealthy seems like a binge. You feel more comfortable eating more vegetables and less junk. It's a long process when you're bombarded with bad food choices. I've found that picking one thing at a time (if you're young enough and in decent shape so you have the time to take it slow) works without overwhelming by forcing you to change your entire diet at once.

Congrats! Very impressive. Your experience motivates me to do the same.

I couldn't agree more with your statement: "it's a long process when you're bombarded with bad food choices."

I worked in a pizza joint many years ago and would drink a half gallon of Coke every day. From that point on, I felt like I needed it to get through the day. I gradually started to drink less and less, but ulimately replaced it with other sugary substances, namely chocolate.

It's very hard to give this stuff up when you are bombarded with sugar from October (Halloween) through Easter.

Sugar is a drug and sugar addiction is no joke. Sure, it's not crack, meth, or alcohol, but the feeling of being "controlled" by it is strong nonetheless.

Posted at 1/7/2009 8:59:08 AM by b


I have stopped the coca as well...also made the switch two years ago to wheat bread, and havent gone back since...Diet choices are hard, but necessary to a good lifestyle...

Posted at 1/12/2009 11:15:48 AM by Uncle Ry Ry


 
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