Tips needed for breaking soda addiction
 

Here's the deal... I've been a soda junkie for as long as I can remember. Got hooked as a toddler and haven't been able to kick the habit since. I've tried the diet stuff, but aspartame gives me headaches and the sucralose-flavored ones are just flat and nasty. I really want to just give them up entirely but am having such a hard time. Other than the sodas, I don't have much of a problem with sugar.

Any tips or advice?
Healthy substitutions for carbonated drinks?
Anyone had luck with supplements that curb sweet cravings?
Or, do I just have to white-knuckle my way through cold turkey style?

:help:

Start by adding carbonated water to thin it out, add a little more every day until you can barely taste the soda. It worked for me.

Thanks for the tip Ladyjan. :wave:

Come on... there must be others out there with this problem. Am I to believe that only 1 person has managed to kick the habit? That's sad.

I don't know if this will help but I drink my requirement of water 1st (1 gal) before I allow myself pop. Some days I get my water down by noontime; other days it takes til suppertime. Good luck!

Kicking Soda Pop
 

I replaced regular soda with Diet Rite in all different flavors ( no caffiene no sodium ). I love an ice cold one when I have a little craving. I made the mistake of buying diet root beer ( One can had the sodium content of 3 Diet Coke's ) and I swelled up like balloon.

You can kick the habit by replacing that fizzy sweetness with a harm free choice like the sugar free sodas or sugar free waters. I think that you have to make the decision not to allow consumer product companies to dictate what choices you give your body. It's a choice you make. There are no tricks, just better substitutions.

cajuda... I'll try the water trick. It's a good way to accomplish 2 goals. Thanks.

nosher... I can't drink the diet stuff. I've tried. But thanks for replying.

I really don't mean to sound like a smart ass, I know all about food addictions....but what about not buying it? There are several ways to go about doing this. If you NEED to buy it .. put it in your cart and at the end of the shopping trip, before hitting the register drop it off and don't actually get it. I do this with a lot of things I want but shouldn't buy.
Find a substitute... fizzy water is refreshing, I used it recently as a sub. for beer which I was hooked on... a beer a night. Haha not really good for the weight loss.
Tell yourself. I WILL NOT BUY POP UNTIL (insert date here) put all the money you'd spend on the drinks in a jar and spend it on something indulgent that you normally would not give yourself, even though you want it. When you drink it, by that time it will probably not taste very good....drink it warm too, that should help with the grossness. It won't help if you eat a lot of sweet things in the meantime to keep your tongue used to the oversweet flavour of that stuff.
I have a tendency to get hooked on diet coke if I drink it. It only takes a few days of 1 per day and I can't stop! I stopped aspartame altogether when getting pregnant and now (thankfully) cannot consume it without feeling really ill.

LOL! That is so funny. :) If it were me and it went in the cart, it'd be in the car next, then, if I hadn't devoured it on the way home, it'd be in the house.

I couldn't stand diet pops for a long time, then I got used to them and regular pop tastes horrid to me.

But I kicked the soda completely (with its caffeine and aspartame) by switching to flavored waters. It took me buying one of each of several brands to find the right one, but I found several that hit the spot and one in particular that I like better than pop. The one that I love now is the Black Cherry flavored version of the Crystal Clear brand, which I think is the supermarket brand for Kroger stores. I also liked the diet cream soda, even though I didn't like the other diet pops. Finally, I bought some sugar free flavored syrups and sometimes I make my own tasty drinks. Plus the flavored syrups help spice up the protein shakes that I sometimes drink.

diet sodas in cans have been linked to alzheimers due to the carbonation in the aluminum can!!! We are poisoning ourselves on these drinks and making the corporate men richer by the minute!.........make a pitcher of iced green tea and sweeten with stevia----use the diet sodas to tenderize your steak b4 bbqing

Have you tried:

Plain soda water - gives you the fizz and liquid & nothing else. It's also sometimes sold as "seltzer water".

Add a slice of lemon or lime if you want a flavor.

I used to drink Mt. Dew all the time. Then, I switched to diet Mt. Dew. Just had to get used to the taste. Now, I even dropped that. I only drink water. Only very rarely do I have a diet soda as a "treat". You just have to get into that mind set that you want to change what you are doing. It's not easy but well worth it.

maybe the point is that not that many people here were addicted to the stuff? ;)

I would take carbonated water and add several drops of flavored stevia extract per glass. You can find flavored stevia at Whole Foods and some health food stores, they have a bunch of different flavors and it will make the water taste swet and give it flavor, too.

Here is the link listing all the flavors: http://www.sweetleaf.com/category.p...e=steviaflavors

I think Valenciaga Orange and Grape would work nicely :yum:

Oh, I'm addicted to the diet stuff. There is nothing better to me than a 44 oz gas station fountain diet coke or diet dew. If I let myself I can drink 2 of those a day. I don't know if it has hindered my weight loss, but he I'm 3 weeks clean from cigs and I'm still doing Atkins without too much weight gain from quitting so I'm keeping this bad habit.

Me too!
 

I am addicted to soda also-mainly Mountain Dew. Do NOT feel alone. If you 'google' "soda addiction" a major network just did a story on it. Of course, it's a problem in the U.S. with 'super-size' this and 'big gulp' that. One of my friends (a smoker) is actually on me to quite Mountain Dew. My extended family (that used to be a bunch of tea totallers) was actually encouraging me to drink wine with them at Thanksgiving (instead of the Mountain Dew). They used to drink soda and sweet tea all the time and now my Mountain Dew habit has them more concerned than if I downed a bunch of wine and then passed out with my two and five year olds in the jacuzzi. I am the addict-the weak one-the bad person. Diabetes runs in our family but I don't have it....Yet. I know I need to quit but every time I try to stop cold turkey I feel like all of the sunshine has been sucked out of my life. I recently read "You, on a Diet". That helped a little bit-to know really how bad the sugar is for your body. I drink about two, twist-off Mountain Dews a day. I slowly drink them throughout the day. This keeps a constant amount of sugar in my bloodstream and on my teeth. (I am crazy about dental hygiene.) I figured this up and this equates to 60 pounds of calories a year (amazingly this is roughly the amount I am overweight). When I stopped drinking soda for two months last year though I didn't lose an ounce so I must have substituted with something. When I stopped last year I just gutted it out for 2-3 weeks then the cravings decreased...but they never went away. I drank a TON of water. I feel your pain. This is a very real addiction. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. I call it "mommy juice". Good luck. Let me know how you do.