Others have mentioned it but I want to double down! I was addicted to soda from 13-25 and I have lost a lot of teeth because of it. Sodastream helped me kick it. It’s much cheaper to maintain and using less acidic waters since you can just use your tap water (or whatever water you want) and has zero sugar. I buy liquid water flavors from Aldi that use stevia for sweetening. 100% the bubbles and they can taste a lot more than the la croix stuff. Put in as much or little flavor as you want. Combine dark cherry and vanilla for a pretty good cola taste too. Zero calories, no gunk on teeth, cost about $22 USD to maintain carbonation of the sodastream and I drink like 2-5 liters of the stuff a day. Good luck! Sugar is one of the hardest addictions out there and big cola makes sure the alternatives are expensive or taste bad. You can do this! The effects of that acidic soda and water on your body overtime does nothing but DAMAGE. love yourself!
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I am a solid Diet Pepsi drinker. All day every day. I did manage a stint for a few months with the Circkle (sp?) water bottles. There are a ton on flavors online and if you buy enough it’s MUCH cheaper than what you pay in Walmart. Today I’m sick in bed and my body has been craving water. Maybe this is a second chance.
Probably not helpful, but for me I made a few changes to cut back on Cokes.
I keep the house stocked with overpriced waters and teas, and they're in the front of the fridge so I see them first. I found I particularly like Snapple's sugar free line. This took a lot of experimenting - be ready to spend a few months buying until you find ones you like. Don't be shy about tossing the shitty ones either - there's an amazing 'variety' of tastes here.
I also learned to make a few drinks I actually like. Right now I'm on a shaken iced tea - much like how a bartender shakes a mixed drink. Mostly just iced tea, but with a healthy splash of lemon juice, 4-6 frozen strawberries instead of ice, and sugar/sugar substitute to taste (about 1 teaspoon), then shake. Gives it a fruity-sweet flavor. And you get to eat strawberry slushies afterwards.
I do still keep Cokes in the house, but it's the fancy glass bottle ones. They're small and expensive, so I drink them in moderation. But simply having them in the house and knowing I can have one if the cravings really hit, somehow makes the cravings less frequent.
Stop drinking soda. They are all bad for you except once in a while.
I love sparkling water... Try to work with that.
Consider that sugar is addictive, so there is that, winning that dependence is tough.
Yes! Large glass of cold fizzly water that hurts just the right amount while you empty it in one gulp. This is the way
What you need is willpower. No way around it. Your options are:
Drink soda sweetened with sugar
Drink soda sweetened with artificial sweeteners
Drink unsweetened soda
I would just stay on the seltzer until you're used to it. I can't even drink sugary soda anymore, maybe as a treat once in a while, but never a whole can or bottle at once. You'll get there too.
OK, as a result of this, I went on a bit of a research trip, and found out that
a) Setzer is apparently just what you people call carbonated water, and, b) that that is because of fucking Selters, a brand of mineral water I could go out and buy in any random-ass supermarket. (Sure, if you wanna go into it, it's because that source has a kinda funky mineral mix, and because water from there has been bottled forever, but whatever.)
There isn't really any point or punchline here, I just think our world is very silly.
Ein klares Wasser muss durch einen tiefen Stein!
I love seltzer, I have also lost my taste for sugary soda. But I can still down a whole can without issue, but now I see it as indulgence similar to ice cream
The best thing you can do is buy carbonated waters.
It sucks but after a few months of not drinking soda you won't crave it anymore.
Buy some juice and mix it 1 parts juice, 6 parts water.
You still get some sugar and flavour fix without feeling an idiot who just guzzled 50g of the white death
Oh! Oh that's genius
I felt the same way years ago. I started drinking coke zero and have no switched back. Normal Coke is waaay too sweet for me now and I much prefer coke zero. I have been drinking it close to 8 years now, and I love it way more.
One thing that helped me was that i read that real sugar binds to sweet receptors, diet substitutes bind to both sweet and bitter at the same time, and that is why it can feel uncomfortable at first. For some reason that helped me understand it and now it's all I want to drink.
I also love Fresca
I was going to give a bunch of advice but then you answered your own question at the end.
If you want to change, you just going to have to change - that's all there is to it.
My advice therefore is that you're going to experience two or three days of discomfort, be prepared to deal with that.
You said you tried powdered drink mixes, have you tried the liquid? I cannot stand the powdered variety, either. I feel like you have more control over the flavor and the mix with the liquid varieties.
They've really helped me kick my soda habit.
ETA: Just some recommendations, avoid the Crystal Light brand, they taste like artificial sweetener. I personally go for generic store brands(Laura Lynn, Great Value), but Mio is a solid choice with a wide range of flavors. Just avoid their Iced Tea unless you really like canned tea. That's exactly what it tastes like.
Seconding this. A lot of the flavors have food dyes but you can also find stevia and more “natural” colored flavors at aldis and other stores, as well!
Soda used to be fermented fruit juice, you could make your own.
Eh, tbf the best luck I've had with any addiction is cold turkey, and not touching it again for months, weeks, years. And warning anyone I care about I may be bitchy for a bit, please have mercy but keep me in check.
I just drink tea nowadays. Brewed tea at home, not bottled tea with ten tons of sugar per tenth of a serving. It took me about ten months to move from exclusively sugary carbonated drinks to tea, but now I don't even enjoy the former anymore.
i got used to LaCroix and prefer it to sugary sodas now after my taste buds went back to normal.
any sugary soda tastes grotesque to me now.
i think liking sodas is a symptom of desensitization to an absurd amount of sugar.
sugar damages your liver just like alcohol (former expert in drinking both here), so it's worth desensitizing your taste buds to the normal soda amount of sugar.
You can start adding water to your soda. Then after a while plain soda will be too sweet. I've been doing that with juice for over 10 years now. Can't have comercial juice anymore, and just started doing it with lemonade too
I've been doing that with juice too (also adding iced tea powder, other stuff like almond extract (cherry taste) for more/different flavor) but I can't imagine watering down soda unless using something that's also carbonated. Which I never really tried the other carbonation options due to cost (not really drinking soda often though, tapwater is free).
Well, I did try watering something down with club soda once but that was gross particularly because the carbonation was already gone.
Zero sugar Gatorade. I'm trying to quit too, addictions suck. I won't let my kid even have soda, maybe once a month he gets a coke.
Honestly you’re just going to have to stop. It’ll suck at first but after 1-2 weeks it should be easy, and from there you won’t even want soda anymore.
Source: I’m a former soda addict
I have a real addiction to soda and I desperately need to cut back at least on the sugar.
Add 1/20th to 1/4 parts water to whatever serving size of soda you drink. Easy peasy does it best.
Try Sparkling Ice water! Very low sugar, but tastes just as sweet as soda to me. They also make energy drinks if that's your vibe
Fresca is my go to
Have you tried Zevia before? I'm currently drinking a Zevia root beer. Stevia is used as the sweetener instead of sugar or aspartame, so zero calories and no artificial sweetener.
Stevia tastes like poison to me, I don't know how people can stand it. But it seems like a decent option if you can tolerate it.
Although I'd still consider it an artificial sweetener, and it still has some health risks, albeit fewer and less severe than other sweeteners like aspartame.
I tried stevia in certain forms and discovered that many companies use nasty fillers. Do your best to notice and avoid. It takes a lot of searching to find the right sweetener/brand of choice but I’ve noticed they can vary wildly in taste. If you get burnt by one, try a totally different brand or two before swearing it off (annoying but worth it in the long run once one hits right)
I personally disagree on the taste. It's a different flavor from sugar and aspartame, but not in a negative way imo.
Why would you consider it artificial though? Stevia is a leaf extract, produced by crushing and boiling stevia leaves.
For me it's a strong sickly sweet with an unpleasant aftertaste. Even a little bit makes some primal part of my brain think I'm eating something poisonous. I also taste cilantro as being soapy, so I think only certain people taste it that way and others don't.
And it's artificial as in "not sugar". It's artificially stimulating taste receptors that are meant to detect sugars. It's plant based, but I don't think that's enough of a reason to categorize it separately from other sweeteners.
I’m with you. Stevia has a distinctive flavor and it’s very noticeable. And unpleasant.
But some people don’t like cilantro, so whatever.
Just drink water with lemon
I've only been able to cut sugar by eating less as a whole. That means intermittent fasting (first meal at noon). No food/snacks after dinner. Going to bed early. If I'm craving something sweet, I'll have A PIECE of candy or HALF a can of cola. I personally really like the taste of Pepsi Zero Lime and Dr. Pepper Strawberries and Cream - but as a Canadian, those flavors aren't readily available here.
"quitting" sugar, like any other addiction takes time and requires a lot of discipline. Make small changes that you can be consistent with and stick with it for a few months. Soon you'll notice your body adjust. You'll have more energy, your cravings will go away, you'll become sensitive to the taste of sugar like how non-smokers are sensitive to the smell of cigarettes. Your only regret will be wishing you had started sooner.
Good luck!
sodastream + mio really helped me kick the habit. i still have a soft drink every now and then when i'm out, but at home i stick to fizzy.
i didn't enjoy any of the sugarfree soda mixes i tried (powder and syrup). i also can't stand diet/zero sodas.
Reduce consumption of canned/bottled drinks slowly.
Say drop it by 1% for the next week. Then 2%, then 5%, then 10%. Make it simple, just use can/bottle count.
You need to give your brain time to adjust.
While you're dropping your soda count, replace it with water. I don't even order sodas when eating out anymore, because they charge way too much for them (about 10x the cost). I wouldn't mind paying a buck or even 2, but often they're $3+. It's even worse with coffee and iced tea...pound sand, give me a water.
Have you tried getting flavored syrups and making your own? That would let you fully control the amount.
I dont know if it will irritate your throat or not as it sounds like you may have an allergy to somw sweeteners, but I have been drinking Clear America sparkling water for a couple years now and it tastes lightyears better than bubbly and la Croix. It is artificially sweetened (aspertame I think?), zero calories, but most of the flavors absolutely do not taste like they are artificially sweetened. Strawberry is the best and is my go to. But the cherry limeade, black cherry, and tangerine are all really good as well. I have my entire family drinking them as a treat when they come over. You can only buy them at Walmart, in the water/sparkling water section.
I'm working on replacing my soda intake with powdered drink mixes myself, I don't need the carbonation, just something flavorful. What did you try in as far as drink mixes? I'm a big fan of Crystal Light's iced tea.
If you really, truly need the carbonation, I'd suggest getting a water carbonator (not sodastream, they're Israeli, not sure who their competitors are but they must exist) and experimenting adding your own flavorings to taste.
Make kombucha at home and let it carbonize. Its good stuff.
Are you able to find any soda in glass bottles? Companies that do that, along with Coke that comes from other countries, are sweetened with cane sugar instead of refined sugar, which people say is better for you in comparison. It's not much but it could be a step in the right direction
There are the probiotic sodas like Poppi that have sugar but not a lot. They are expensive though. What worked for me is carbonated water with a touch of flavoring. Either homemade with some fruit juice added, or store brand, or Lacroix.
I have tried watering things down and I've tried using just sparkling water to keep the carbonation but water things down.
Personally, I like just plain seltzer water by itself, but have you tried (unsweetened) cranberry juice and seltzer water? Might help if you're craving the acidity but don't want the sugar.
I got off sodas and energy drinks by first transitioning to carbonated water as my default drink for a few years. Eventually I have moved to just water without carbonation.
After 1 month normal sodas will taste sickeningly sweet. Then it's easy to stay on carbonated water. That first month is hard, mostly breaking old habits.