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[mommydama]

Today is the first day of implementing my New Year's Resolution. I didn't talk about it before because I can never follow through on anything, but I see now that I need the accountability. Here it is.

Yesterday, I drank my last diet Coke. Or Coke of any kind actually. Perhaps, after the initial withdrawal has passed, I can have one as an occasional treat, but I was drinking three of four cans a day and that has to stop. Now. No more Coke. Caffeine is only one very small reason that I want to get rid of Coke (have you ever read the ingredients in that stuff! Yikes!!), but I do want to severely limit caffeine too. I don't drink coffee, but I do like tea, so for the first few days I am going to allow myself two cups of tea, iced most likely, as it is too warm here for anything else, to help me over the caffeine hump. Tea is actually very good for me, green tea especially, so I may continue a morning ritual of having tea. But I must get rid of the pop (do you call it soda or pop or soda pop or a generic, southern "coke"? Just curious.)

Comments

[misskerri.livejournal.com]

Think of all the money you'll save if you can eliminate the soda from your life and convert to just water!

I am once again trying to give up soda, because it is part of what is making/keeping me fat. I was really good for a few months and had given the stuff up almost entirely, but have slipped back into an 'at-least-one-a-day' habit. I could just switch to diet soda, but diet soda is so nasty that I'd rather go without than try to stomach that stuff.

I wish you luck! The caffeine demon is a hard one to free yourself of!

[moobabe.livejournal.com]

I call it soda.

Good for you for giving it up. I've switched to the Whole Foods Generic variety of soda, because I couldn't give up soda altogether, but wanted to get rid of some of the bad stuff. The Whole Foods brand has no sodium, no caffeine, and uses sugar instead of the dreaded High Fructose Corn Syrup, so it could be worse. And, hey, since I'm aware that it costs more than my beloved Caffeine Free Pepsi (though not much more), and that we have to drive a Honking Long Way to get it, I'm a lot more likely to drink water or lemonade than soda.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Giving up the caffeine may be harder than I thought. But I didn't miss the diet Coke today. I just drank too much tea!

Why is high fructose corn syrup worse than regular old sugar? I know it is, but I don't know why.

[moobabe.livejournal.com]

Actually, I didn't know, myself. ;) I just did a very small amount of reading, and some people (particularly corn manufacturers, heh) say that there's no difference; other people say that it acts more like fat in the body. I'm more interested in the "no sodium" angle of the Whole Foods stuff, myself.

Caffeine can be hard to kick! Tea's better for you than soda, though. :)

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I call it soda, although I'll refer to coke or sprite or whatever, as coke or sprite. It makes me crazy when people call any and all soda coke!

I could give you some "inspiration" ;) - When I was in 7th grade science, our teacher got a whole, intact, real tooth, and he dropped it in a glass of (regular, not diet) coke. We left it there until class the next day, and when we took it out after 24 hours, the tooth SMUSHED between his fingers like goo. That's how wack that stuff is. My dad has drank ONLY coke for his entire adult life, and aside from bad teeth and urinary tract infections, a doctor told him his horrible, chronic heartburn is because the coke has eaten away the sphincter at the top of his stomach, so that nothing keeps anything he eats/drinks DOWN, anymore. If he lays down right after he eats, he throws up half the time.

Granted, that again is regular coke, and my dad goes through a 12 pack a day. But man...ugh.


Grant, being the annoying, high metabolism, typical man that he is, has lost pretty much the whole 25 pounds he's lost simply by cutting out soda and caffeine. He still splurges everyday (if I did that, I would have lost maybe 5 or 10). So I know it's had a huge impact on his weight. Maybe that is something to look forward to?

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Cutting out a 12-pack of 12-oz cans of regular coke is a cut of *1680* calories a day (12 x 140 cals/can), which is as many calories as I eat in an ENTIRE DAY while maintaining my weight, so I'm not surprised that just cutting that has let your dad drop 25 lbs. That's a *massive* cut, really.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

I've been getting heartburn some lately, something that has never happened to me before and that scenario about your dad is exactly what I'm afraid of. So. Yeah. Motivation. And the tooth thing....Ooooooo gross!

I switched from regular to diet coke about six months ago in a desperate bid to lose weight. Absolutely nothing happened. Then I read an article about how diet sodas (I call it pop, by the way) and other things with aspartame in them can actually cause weight gain because they fool the body into thinking it is getting sugar and then when the calories don't appear the body goes into starvation mode and sugar cravings go through the roof and the body hoards the calories. I went..."Oh, that explains it. Crap." So now, I'm just getting rid of it completely. Coke (and other soda pop) sucks the calcium out of your bones, rots your teeth, eats away your stomach lining, has excess calories leading to weight gain...and it 'causes gas. Why didn't I give it up sooner? I've known all this forever!!

[justamy.livejournal.com]

i call it soda, and i call it love :)
i applaud you, but, at this point, only death will keep me from this vice. i'd rather quit smoking AND diet forever before i'll give up my precious diet coke.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm just picking something I think I might actually be able to do. I don't want to fail. Again. I need to succeed at something soon.

I hope this one will be easier than some other things I should change about myself.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

I sometimes call it just "coke" (especially did when I was younger), but often "soda" (spent enough time out of Texas for that to finally stick!). I have definitely participated in both sides of the conversation that goes "You wanna coke?" "Sure!" "What kind?" "Got Dr. Pepper?" that drives non-southerners so nuts. :)

One thing you might note, caffeine is a pretty powerful diuretic, so don't freak out if you abruptly gain some weight after you cut it. It's just water weight! And as soon as your body gets used to balancing its water *without* the big diuretic hit, you'll drop that off again; counterintuitive as it may seem, drinking *more* water will help that happen faster.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't really expect to lose weight on this one, though that is in the back of my mind as this is just a first step to a whole eating overhaul. I feed my family really, really well. I just eat crap when no one is looking. But, I'm glad you warned me 'cause I would have freaked out if I started *gaining* during my "first step to a healthier me!"

[tabologist.livejournal.com]

We call it pop in Michigan.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Hey! I call it pop too! Don't know about other Kansans though. I've never paid any attention to that before.

[librissimma.livejournal.com]

I used to call it pop, but after all my time in NE with Southern Baptists I switched to either soda or coke. Coke always works since that's mostly what I drink.

[misskerri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I grew up in Ann Arbor, and it was pop. I miss Faygo. ;)

Now that I'm in Texas, I mostly call it soda. Actually, I mostly call it "coke," because Coke (or other like-tasting colas) is what I drink.

[linnapaw.livejournal.com]

I used to call it pop, but now I call it soda, thanks to one of my best friends spanish_rhode insisting that everybody around her call it soda as well.

I know I'm hooked on the stuff, so it's one of the things I give up when I'm fasting... so no soda on Wednesdays or Fridays, during Great Lent, Nativity Fast, Dormition Fast, etc. I actually find that when I get through those fasts, I'm not nearly as addicted to them. (Though the last couple of days have been horrible... I feel like I'm getting a cold, so all that I'm craving is Cherry Coke for the caffeine to be used as a stimulant to fight this thing.)