Buh-bye Diet Coke!

It’s time. I hate to do it, but I simply must, must give up Diet Coke.

This is gonna be really hard. I don’t remember when I started the serious Diet Coke habit (probably when I started working at Burger King at 16), but it has been a serious habit for nearly thirty years.

I first knew it was a crutch when I attended college and would line up three smallish (8 or 10 oz…this was long before supersize) cups of Diet Coke and one small cup of ice on my cafeteria tray at every meal, including breakfast. Later on, fasting for five months was palatable because I found (despite advice to abstain) that I could drink just 600 cals a day as long as I could also have my Diet Coke.

Nowadays, my daily Diet Coke fix involves stopping at Wendy’s on the way to work. I buy a small (for the ride) and a large (32 oz) for work. Today, I did lunch at Camilles and bought another large.

It’s just gotta stop, and here’s why.

First, just think of what I could do with the money I’d save. I’ve done the math, and it looks like I spend more than $1,000 a year on Diet Coke!

More important are the health issues. IMO, there’s still a question about whether aspartame is safe. Yes, the FDA recently said that it’s actually okay for humans, but lately this kind of stuff is like New England weather: wait 15 minutes and it will change.

Next, we have the link between diet soda and obesity. Whether this is because people think they can eat more as long as they drink diet soda, or whether we’re screwing ourselves up (re cravings) by having sweet stuff w/o calories, I don’t know.

Regular Diet Coke also has caffeine in it, and the jury is definitely out on how much is too much and whether it’s bad for you.

There’s also a suspected link between phosphoric acid and osteoporosis. Phosphoric acid is thought to either lead to calcium loss or reduced calcium absorption.

But now, I’ve come across the latest doozy. Turns out that sodas that include both potassium benzoate (which according to my can “protects taste”) and Vitamin C (aka citric acid) may lead to unacceptable levels of benzene, a known carcinogen. Okay, yeah, the FDA says this is bunk too, but I’m not sure I’m willing to trust W’s FDA on the subject.

Enough! I give!

I’ve been doing much the same thing with Diet Coke that I did with food a year ago. I tell myself I’ll stop shortly. I said I’d stop after my embolization procedure (in fact, as soon as I could have liquid in the hospital, I asked for a Chaturbate show and got, a Diet Coke). Now I’m saying “gee, just wait until you finish your office move.”

Nope. Today is it. The Diet Coke from Camille’s is my last. And I’m going to give the two cans of CF Diet Coke I snagged at a work function away. Starting now, it’s gonna be water at work and iced tea at home (which I’m currently making with one organic black tea bag and one organic green tea bag, lemon, and stevia).

I’ve done this once or twice before, but have always gone back to my little habit. This time, I’m going to pay attention. It’s curious to me how much I actually crave Diet Coke. I’ve noticed in the past that I’ve dropped a noticeable amount of weight (I’ve figured water weight) when I cut it out or back. But there’s also an interesting question about whether this craving may mean something else:

Food sensitivities may cause allergic people to crave those foods to which they are allergic. Just as a drug addict suffers withdrawal symptoms when the drug is withdrawn, allergic people experience discomfort when they lose access to a particular food.

I’m done. Buh-bye Diet Coke. Let the last caffeine-withdrawal headache begin!!

Good for you!

I know it’s hard. I used to have a serious problem with it. Before Diet Coke it was Tab. And I also had a flirtation with Diet Pepsi. If there’s one thing I’m grateful for from my time in the Weight Watchers trenches, it’s breaking myself of the diet soda habit and getting used to drinking water and lots of it. Water with meals and in a bottle at my desk at all times. I also carry a water bottle with me in my bag. It’s the only thing I will drink with meals. Except for red wine, of course.

I’ll have a diet soda now every once in a while, like maybe once every couple of months (and I’ve noticed that the odd craving I get for one now and then usually coincides with PMS and my desire for my own personal salt lick), but I have to say, don’t really miss them.

This is something that’s been on my list for a while, too. I have one a day, and oh, do I love it. I’ve tried to kick it a couple times, but it just never takes. Why am I sad at the thought of giving it up?!?! Perverse!

My naturopathic physician told me two things (1) cut back on sugar and (2) eliminate artificial sweeteners entirely. I too had been hooked on diet soda (it started with diet Pepsi for me), and I too dig the stevia-sweetened tea. Thanks for always your thought ful posts with referring articles and links, you could be a librarian!

I too have given up Diet Coke (its been around 3 months now). I believe the connection between aspartame and depression. On days where I would drink copious amounts of Diet coke (5 cans +) I’d feel like pure crap. The immediate signs were headaches and a generally feeling of yuck. My emotions were all screwed up, I would cry, I’d be angry for no reason. I didnt understand why and was on the brink of seeking medical help (my husband was pretty much begging me..)

I read a few articles on aspartame and there were a few case studies that sounded exactly like me. So I thought I’d experiement. I cut out all artifical sweeteners with the intention of tracking my outbursts - but there have been none since!

Buh-bye Diet Coke indeed!

OK, this is not in the least health conscience but I just wanted to chime in that my body feels a HUGE difference between Diet Coke with aspartame and Diet Coke with Splenda. Diet Coke with aspartame (I didn’t know until I switched) seemed to do something funky to my blood sugar. Made me hungrier.

DC with Splenda DOES taste different and at first I really preferred the familiar refreshingly bite-y taste of DC with aspartame. But, after I started noticing the big difference between the two versions I avoid DC with aspartame like the plague. (I’ve seen negative things about Splenda too but superficially it really helps control my appetite for sugars)

That said, cutting the stuff off entirely is the way to go for all the reasons you said! But for anyone who can’t kick the stuff, or might want to wean off a bit before quitting, I’d definitely recommend giving the version with Splenda a try for a week and see if you notice a difference in how it effects you.

Lynette, you know, I’ve never developed an affection for Splenda…I don’t like the taste! So much so, that before I started using stevia, I actually used saccharin (sweet ‘n low) as my sweetener of choice for things like tea.

BTW, according to Jimmy Moore, they are discontinuing Diet Coke with Splenda in favor of Coke Zero. I hope for your sake that isn’t true!

Well Beth, if it makes you feel any better, here’s yet another reason to quit…but a non-health related one…

Happy reading!

I haven’t had a Diet Coke in about 15 years. I used to drink it on occasion when I was on my diet. But I much prefer a citrus taste, so if I have a yen for soda at all, it’s usually for the diet versions of 7-up or Sprite, or for Fresca (my personal favourite soda). The best, most thirst-quenching drink for me is lemon or lime juice in water, with no sweetener of any kind; hot in winter, cold in summer. You can’t beat it!

B’wha! Thanks for the advance warning Beth!

question: whats stevia?

Stevia is an herb from South America that is much sweeter than sugar. Stevia fans talk about how great it is and how they’ve been using it for decades in other countries. But there are stevia detractors who note that it may be problematic in huge doses (like if we turn into a mega-ingredient like high-fructose corn syrup).

This means that stevia is like every other artificial sweetener: you can find fans and foes. But since I don’t care for the taste of Splenda, and I am very suspicious of aspartame (which you wouldn’t know from my ridiculous Diet Coke habit), I tend to use stevia at home and Sweet ‘n Low when out.

I don’t cook sweet things, so I don’t need something for baking…I mostly use it for iced tea, so my use is fairly minimal. Though it may be going up now that I’m off Diet Coke :)

Not to defend diet sodas, but the link to bone problems is pretty much an urban legend. A 1989 study of young women athletes suggested a link, but many more controlled and better designed studies since then have come up empty.

While I’ve had a lot of questionable jasminelive habits over the years? — thankfully pop, diet or otherwise, never became one of them. Nor coffee either (not that I didn’t try) . I do drink a mean glass of decaffienated herbal tea from time to time though….

In any event, here’s wishing you much luck and success in going Diet Coke free!

Im almost there with you. My nutritionist always said to give it up, but I never saw any harm in it. I didn’t drink diet coke for 2-3 days this week, cause of my cleanse, but then I got some Diet Icea Tea from the varioety store. It had aspertame too. I dont understand it. Is there anything we can still get from a store? Even those flavoured waters have sucralose in it? Is that bad too? Is Splenda safe? Im confused. It seems, everything we like is bad for us!

If you know Beth, can you let me know. You seem very knowledgeable on this!

I’m on day 5 of cutting back from 88+oz of diet coke to one can a day. I never notices that EVERYTIME i would stop somewhere i would buy a diet coke. I do feel a lot better without it, but i also miss the amounts I would drink :( When I get the craving though, i just remind myself that a can has about 6 packets of sweetener in it — at my prior amounts that is a disgusting amount of sweetener. I can just imagine the huge pile of packets I’m putting into my body. That makes it easier to drink water instead.

I myself keep trying to lose weight and am constantly frustrated by the things diets tell me to cut out first. I don’t drink pop/soda more than maybe once a month at most. I already take my tea black, and coffee with one cream, one sugar. I also don’t drink fruit juice, which my dad guzzles even though it’s sugar water as far as I can tell. I haven’t eaten white bread in years, and the other bread products my family consumes are almost all whole grain.

I do have a coca-cola addicted friend, and she’s had to cut it out. She’s had a chronic pain injury in her arm, and while she doesn’t agree, we think her bones must be weaker for some reason. Coke might just be the cause. (Most people’s bones can sustain a university student’s courseload and its required handwriting…)

At any rate, great that you’ve decided to cut it out. I’m still trying to find things to cut out and I really appreciate the skeptism you show for the FDA’s apparent approval of many products which may be extremely carcinogenic. If they actually knew what caused cancer and made an effort to limit the public’s exposure, there might be a lot more whole families today.

I contracted aml luekemia last year the time I was drinking 4, 64ounce fountain diet cokes a day. I know that I contracted this from drinking to much coke. I’m still fighting the disease and would love to talk to lawyers out thier that could help me with my case. I do not have a history of cancer in my family, I’m only 33 years old and have not been hardly sick at all in my life I don’t drink and smoke.

My so-called addicted life

It is day six since I gave up Diet Coke (BTW, that post drew a record number of comments here!). I’ve been drinking iced tea, so I haven’t wound up with a major caffeine headache.

Anyways, so far so good. The jury is still out, as this habit is one that’s proven tough to stick with over the long term.

Interesting that it turns out that this week is TV turnoff week. Well, maybe next year. I think I can only handle one “addiction” at a time.

Seriously, for me, watching too much TV and overeating is like a chicken and the egg kind of thing. I’m not sure which came first. And I’m pretty sure that it isn’t a good thing that I TiVo five and a half hours of programming every day (in order, Ellen, Starting Over, Dr. Phil, Oprah, The Daily Show, and few random cam girls from Livejasmin) before you add in the weekly programming (The Apprentice, Medium, Everwood, How I Met Your Mother, Gilmore Girls, American Idol–Tuesday’s only, Scrubs, My Name is Earl, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and liberal amounts of Bravo and FoodTV).

Yikes. I do have a problem!

Now of course, the great thing about TiVo is that you can fast forward. And more often than not, I’ll just delete an entire episode of stuff like Dr. Phil or Oprah because it’s just not that interesting to me.

And I’m also the queen of multi-tasking, so more often than not I’m working on the computer or reading while a program is on. However, the older I get, the more I’m finding that this isn’t generally satisfactory unless it’s something like American Idol, where it’s fine to just listen.

But maybe this is more of a problem than I thought. Check out what Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pdf) had to say a few years back:

Okay, yeah, lots of doom and gloom. But I half suspect that there is related phenomenon going on at the brain level with both kinds of excesses.

But whatever the mechanism, isn’t TV really just like food? You can say there is no “bad” or “good” TV (or food), but in reality, I guess quality is just as much an issue with TV as it is with food. And the quality of our lives–the amount of energy we have–depends on the quality of our “inputs.”

It’s beginning to occur to me that part of why I’ve used food, drink, Diet Coke, and TV is that it helps me go on auto-pilot. It’s not that I don’t have future plans (for example, right now I’m thinking about doing yet more graduate school). But I don’t know what I want for myself. I don’t know where to begin in terms of making some major life decisions like: buy a house or a condo (or neither)? Stay single, get married, have lots of flings with all sorts of people? Stay in DC or move?

I think that one of the ideas that makes sense is that in order to get the answers to these kinds of questions you have to get quiet. This is one of the attractions meditation has for me. Yet I don’t do it (though I like the idea of Eknath Easwaran’s Eight Point Program a lot).

One of these days, I’m going to become more conscious about my TV watching. But I think that part of it will involve figuring out what it is I really want to do with my life.

You may be interested in the book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. In it he asserts that TV creates incapacity for thinking by the short intervals of programming interspersed with news and commercials, all unrelated, many of which alone would be emotionally upsetting, frightening, sorrowful, joyful, etc., but mushed all together both deaden our emotions and prevent us from sustaining critical thought for more than 60 seconds at a time. He further asserts that the “junk” on TV is the best for you because you know it’s junk. More pernicious is the “serious” TV that substitutes soundbites for critical thinking and argument, thus programming you to do the same. Hmmmmm.

I fell off the wagon :(

but i got back on today with a new rule. Every day I drink two 1 liter bottle of water (at least). I have my sippy bottle so it is easy to track. So I told myself, girl, you can have AS MUCH of your beloved DCL (diet coke with lime) or diet squirt as you want — BUT! you have to drink an additional liter of water (on top of my usual minimum 2 for the day) for every one you drink. One coke = one liter of water. So I am slugging down liter 3 for the day to compensate for the diet coke i had at lunch and there is no way i’m drinking another tonight. I’ll slosh!

So far, so good.

I am currently reading a fitness book “Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle” by Tom Venuto. In the beginning, he talks a lot about mindset and goal setting. He assets that people spend more time planning a vacation that they do their life. He asks “How can you hit the target when you don’t know where it is?” How true! TV, food, entertainment all serve to distract us from planning and thinking. Hey - the Roman emperors all knew that, hence all the spending on extravagent games the populace could attend for free!

I was going to recommend Neil Postman, no fair! :)

Turning off/cutting back on TV has many benefits besides the induced passivity… most notably, those super-skinny actors/actresses whose constant presence enforces the unattainable “normal” body type. Turn off the TV, and let the people around you define the “normal” body type instead.

I’ve cut down the Tivoing to an hour or two a day, three at the most. On the other hand, my online movie rental queue has broken 1,000…

Food inertia: Why not eat healthy?

Okay, so here’s the followup inertia post I promised the other day.

I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, and have been meaning to post something about it for a month now, ever since coming across this post from Rantings of a struggling fat chick:

This is exactly what I was asking myself a little over a year ago.

Last January, a typical Saturday for me would have involved sleeping in until 9 or 10, heading over to McDonalds at 11 for a Big Mac meal (large), with fries and a Diet Coke. Some brunch! Around 6, I’d have my cocktail hour, and I’d polish off several glasses of wine along with some munchies (my faves were either cheese crackers or salt and vinegar potato chips). By 7, it’d be time to place the order for take-out Chinese, and I’d generally eat two egg rolls followed by some General Tso’s chicken and some veggie moo shu. I’d then have dessert, which could be ice cream, a candy bar, or cookies.

Contrast that with a typical Saturday now. I’m up earlier, and usually have breakfast by 9, which is generally oatmeal, fresh fruit, and yogurt. Lunch is one of my go-to faves, which is doctored soup. For example, I start with a can of Progresso minestrone, and add frozen spinach, frozen peas, fresh garlic, some grilled salmon, and a couple dashes of hot sauce. Dinner is often some grilled chicken, brown rice, and assorted veggies. I really like adding pesto (either basil or sun-dried tomato) to the veggies. If I have an evening snack, it will probably be an apple cut into wedges dusted with cinnamon and a small amount of dark chocolate.

How the heck did I do this?

Well, I wish I knew for sure. I’m really sorry I didn’t start blogging before I got started on my eating healthy kick, because it would have been a lot fresher in my mind.

But here’s what seems true now. First of all, I did approach this differently than I had the gazillions of other things I’d tried in the past. What I theorized was that it was possible to actually want to eat healthier. And I was curious to see where I’d be if I stopped my compulsive overeating. I also figured that if I could want to eat healthier, it would be so much less stress: so much less banging my head against the wall as I beat myself up for eating the way I used to.

Because I really was beating myself up for that. And now when I look back, I have to ask: why in the world didn’t I want to eat healthy?

I mean, like most heavy overeaters, it’s not like I didn’t know what was nutritious and what wasn’t. Like many, I was a walking food guide. Yet I had the same kind of mindset as I kicked off my eating healthy plan: how can I stand missing out on all my old favorite foods?

Now when I look back, I think of this as a kind of psychological inertia. When you couple that with the physiological cravings that I believe that eating junk food can cause in some folks, it’s no wonder why it’s so hard.

I talked about inertia shortly after I started Act Boldly. Okay, I’m a geek (I have a physics minor), but I still think that there’s something worthwhile in considering how inertia applies.

Basically, what inertia says is that it is really hard to make a change, as you have to apply some extra effort to stop doing what you’ve been doing. In physics, this means that if you’re at a stop, you have to apply some force in order to begin moving. In eating, I think it means that if you’ve been eating junk food for years, you’ll need to make an effort to change the way you eat.

But what physics also tells us that once you’re moving, you don’t need to do as much work to keep going. What I’ve found is that the kind of head banging I was doing (What? No more french fries?!) has really, really lessened as I’ve experienced feeling so good with healthy eating.

I didn’t know that this was going to happen when I got started, but the longer I’ve gone on, the easier it has become. So I guess this is a little bit of science meets religion: physics can explain it, but you do need to take an initial leap of faith.

Ultimately, I have come to realize that all the time I was enjoying those Big Macs and egg rolls, I was essentially starving myself. No wonder I had cravings!

The value of increasing nutrients in the diet (which requires reducing non-nutritive foods) is gaining a lot of traction these days. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have to go back to work next week, as I’ll probably miss interesting nuggets like these on the talk shows, but here’s something that Ashley Judd had to say on Martha Stewart yesterday regarding NutritionAID, (a program to help teens learn healthy eating and increase physical activity):

Hmmm…overfed but undernourished. Boy, does that sound like it describes my old way of eating!

Courtesy of a pointer from CalorieLab, I did a little Google surfing and came across a recommendation for communicating nutrient density as a tool to help people make better choices:

As Gerald Pugliese suggests over on Joel Fuhrman’s (of Eat to Live fame) blog (emphasis mine):

So, of course, we’re all different, and no one plan works for everyone.

But if you’re like me, you may want to try and summon up the energy to give healthy eating a try. When I started, I had very, very little energy, and had been using the “one more day” excuse for way too long.

So I borrowed a trick I’d heard from Tony Robbins (the self-help guru) who said something years ago about needing to break patterns. So what I did when I first got started was to not come home for dinner the first week!

As you can tell from my old way of eating, dinner was my problem, so what I did was break my old pattern, and I ate dinner at work for several days. I also made it easy, so dinner was generally my doctored soup.

After a few days, the cravings were much, much less, and I was able to come home at a normal time. As I mentioned before, I also choose easy first. I did a lot of takeout initially, with favorites being a Chipoltle burrito in a bowl and a Subway turkey sub. I’d supplement with veggies, generally frozen spinach, broccoli, or peppers.

The longer I did this, the more energy I had. I wasn’t hungry, because I was really filling up on veggies (gotta love that fiber) and I allowed myself good fats, which helped me stay full longer. And as time went by, I started cooking more. But even then, I tended to make that easy (e.g., this pumpkin soup recipe).

These days, I still make use of canned soup and frozen veggies. But I’m also branching out and trying new techniques to maximize the nutrients (in fact, I just bought a casserole with lid to try Alton Brown’s baked brown rice).

And while the old me couldn’t imagine giving up my Big Mac and fries, the new me now can’t imagine not wanting to give myself the advantage of eating healthy stuff. I didn’t know this would happen when I started, but I thought it was possible.

That doesn’t mean I won’t ever eat my old faves. In fact, I’m having Easter dinner at my sister’s in-laws tomorrow, and I fully expect to enjoy whatever is served, dessert and all. But on Monday, I’ll be back to going for the nutrients.

Like I said in the original inertia post, I think this is a lot like learning to ride a bicycle. If you’re like me, it’s not like you won’t have a few spills along the way (I certainly did after every vacation :). But IMO, it’s really worth perservering. With practice, it may well be that you can make healthy eating something you once thought you’d never get, but soon find second nature.

Update, 4/17: More serendipity…over on Elsewhere, Amanda makes a similar connection between nutrition and weight.

Update, 4/18: There must be something in the water :). Wendy (of Why the Weight?) is also on a serious nutrition kick. Sweet!

Our problem was, for years, eating out. It was a habit we’d picked up in the college years when trying to cook was more difficult due to the living situation. And then inertia set in and I got too lazy to really cook anything — I could blame it on work, the commute, whatever, and the hubby can’t cook — and we ate boxed/frozen food even though I didn’t really like it.

Well, we also didn’t have the income to support those habits in the long run. It wasn’t the only contributor to our debt, but eventually we looked at the credit card bills and agreed that we had to make some rules.

Stupid part is, I can cook from scratch, and I enjoy it. One of the best things I did, a few years ago, was subscribe to Cooking Light magazine, because as a kid I learned to cook with bacon grease and lots of red meat. Their input really helped me shift from a very Northern European diet to something more Mediterranian. And I slowly re-learned the love of cooking, which meant a lot less salt, fat, sugar, and additives with questionable long-term effects (I’m a biology person, rather than physics.)

But I take weekends off. We still eat out on weekends, and that’s when I scratch any craving itches I might have… assuming I can keep them in mind until the weekend ;)

Proving once again that the boldest act is to slow down, take your time, incorporate changes gradually and lose the weight over a long period of time from a healthful, balanced diet.

you might want to check out Calorie Commando on FoodNetwork. He was a contestant on the early Body Challenge series on Discovery. On Calorie Commando he takes peoples favorite high fat, high calorie recipes and reworks them, keeping the flavor and losing the fat. I’ve tried a few and they are really good. I especially like the fried parsnips and cauliflower. Who’d had thunk it!

I’m not sure when he show airs, but you can check their website for his recipes from previous shows.

Thanks for the link Beth! I’m getting lots of traffic from it . . . I hope whatever purges out of my brain is useful to someone, somewhere. Love your site, read it regularly. Keep it up!

If you truly listen to your body when you are physically hungry you will rarely choose to eat junk food. The only time I want to eat Cheetos or Oreos is when I want to eat for emotional reasons. When I’m actually hungry (but not OVERLY hungry) I don’t want to reach for a bag of chips.

A psychology professor of mine, way back in misty history, once said, “You don’t eat something because you like it; you like it because you eat it.” And one more quote from the Duke of Wellington: “Habit is not second nature; it’s ten times nature.”

Worth a visit