Addicted to Diet Coke?Anyone?

[t951]

Originally Posted by juan ruiz

3- According to Mama between flipping over in bed like a cheeseburger and the snoring she wont sleep in our room any longer.

how do I kill this habit?

Whew, I thought you were talking about killing your wife!

[berettafan]

good and timely thread!

drink a lot of DP every day. have tried a few times to get it back to one in the am and one at lunch (and glass of wine with dinner) but it is proving harder than it was quitting the smokey treats many years ago.

my god, give me an ice cold diet pepsi and a menthol on a porch at 7am overlooking a beautiful carribbean vista and i'd likely overdose on contentment.

[Dueller]

I really couldn't go cold turkey, either. I started by just having one to get me going in the morning. Switch to flavored water during the day. Maybe allow myself one at lunch and one in the afternoon. None after 5 p.m. I immediately began to sleep better and did not have to get up in the middle of the night to pee.

I then began drinking unsweetened tea for lunch. I also began drinking black coffee in the a.m., limiting myself to one cup mid morning. Gradually I started drinking the flavored waters instead of DC. I kept a number of different flaors in the fridge so I wouldn't get "bored" with them.

Took me about 2 weeks before I weaned myself with no ill side effects. Actually began to feel better almost immediately with just cutting back. I still will have a DC once or twice a week at most. Sometimes I go several weeks without having one.

Basically I just changed my habits and tried to do a variety of healthier beverages to break the only DC habit.

Also...with the flaored waters, I find that I now enjoy plane water whereas before I didn't. And my pecker seems to get much harder now

Good luck.

[Whtnkls911]

I had a very similar Diet Coke habit and quit a just over a year ago. I replaced it with diet green tea. I've lost 20 lbs and I feel 100% better. I sleep at night and no more snoring (helped to lose the weight). The best side effect though is I used to get colds fairly often, since quitting DC and taking up diet green tea, I never get sick. It must be all those antioxidants in the green tea.

[masraum]

I used to drink a fair amount of soda. At some point, I decided the amount that I was drinking was bad so I started drinking flavored seltzer water. Ingredients, water, carbonation, natural flavor. Now, I don't drink soft drinks at all.

Publix used to have really good flavored seltzer water and used to put 2L bottles on sale for .50 a bottle.

No Publix here in Texas, so I'm stuck with Canada Dry which is OK.

[VincentVega]

I drink tons of water too but just get the scratch for a diet coke during the day. I've tried to substitute everything I can find, G2, flavored water, you name it. Crystal light was the worst, I think that stuff has more chemicals than diet coke.

My favorite drink is capt and diet, been hooked since college, and that's where I really fall down.

[Tim Hancock]

The only pop I drink during an average week is a bit of Diet Coke in the evenings as a mixer with vodka. I hate the taste of any sort of "diet" beverage, but for some reason it works for me as a mixer with vodka. A normal day consists a cup of instant coffee, 8 oz of grape juice and 8 oz of water right before I head out the door for work, then two cups of coffee at work and several glasses of water throughout the day when thirsty and with all meals.

Been working pretty good for me and since the daily grape juice in the mornings starting a few years ago, I have not had a cold or the flu.

[rammstein]

Think about it this way- what is GOOD about Diet Cola? Nothing. Its just bs. It serves no purpose, other than taxing your body to process that crap back out of you. Just give it up, deal with the withdrawl for a week, and then enjoy your healthier lifestyle.

Soda is crap.

[porsche4life]

I drink anywhere between 2 and 6 12oz'ers of Diet Coke or Coke Zero a day......

[Gogar]

Juan,

IMO you could start by switching from DC (aspartame) to Coke Zero (sucralose) immediately. and then ween yourself off of it.

Like Whtnkis911 said, that Lipton Diet Green Tea (citrus) is well . . . .. still not good, but it's a great stepping stone. No carbonation, no caramel color, but it does have aspartame.


Do you have any problems with heartburn or acid reflux? I bet you do, huh?

[juan ruiz]

Do you have any problems with heartburn or acid reflux?

I'm good on that dept so far

[exitwound]

From a few days ago: Diet Sodas May Hurt Kidneys - Shots - NPR's Health Blog Blog : NPR

You might want to think twice before gulping down that second diet soda today.

Watch your kidneys, folks. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)


Researchers analyzing the health habits of thousands of nurses found that women who drank two or more diet sodas daily had a two-fold increase in the risk of a significantly faster drop in their kidneys' ability to filter blood compared with those who drank one or none.

Another analysis by the same pair of Harvard researchers found that eating a lot of salt also hurt kidney's filtering power over time.

"While more study is needed, our research suggests that higher sodium and artificially sweetened beverages are associated with a greater rate of decline in kidney function," Dr. Julie Lin, a kidney specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a statement.

The analysis relied on data from a long-running project called the Nurses' Health Study that gathered all sorts of information about health and food consumption. The study shows an association between diet beverage consumption and decreased kidney function over 11 years but doesn't prove causation.

Still, the data were analyzed to account for other factors--such as high blood pressure, diabetes and physical activity--that could explain the difference. And consumption of sodas sweetened with sugar, juices, punch and iced tea wasn't associated with any unusual decrease in kidney function.

Oh, the study participants were all women and were on the older side--average age of 56 at the start of the study period in 1989. Ninety-seven percent were white. So there are some legitimate questions about how applicable the findings might be to other groups. Still, Dr. Lin told us by phone, "with diet stuff, there is no significant reason to think that people should differ that much."

The findings were presented at a San Diego meeting of kidney specialists over the weekend. There was "a lot of personal reaction," Lin told us, such as the person who said, "I drink five diet sodas a day. Will you be my nephrologist?"

We wanted to know what she thinks might be going on with diet sodas. She's not sure, she said. But if the results can be validated in other human studies, she suspects it may be because diet sweeteners are leading to more kidney scarring over time.

Given the health risks of obesity and the calories packed by sugary drinks, do diet sodas still make sense? "I don't personally recommend drinking sugared or diet soda," she said. "I don't drink either. From a health point of view, they're likely not good for you."

Update: We got permission from the American Society of Nephrology to reproduce the abstracts for the work Lin presented. Click here for the summary about artificially sweetened beverages and here for the more general one about diet and kidney function decline.

[GARG]

Light weights. I down 5-7+ 2 liters a day. When I switched from reg. coke to diet about 15 yrs. ago I just about doubled my intake. I love to drink the stuff, I have a 64oz mug with ice within arms reach all day every day. The last six month I quit smoking all together and quit diet coke @ work. Still drink as much, but water give me bad heartburn from it. A while back I googled kidney thruput and am not even close.

[McLovin]

Nothing a little brain cancer won't cure.

[Monza_dh]

I gave up all soft drinks 6 years ago cold turkey and never looked back. I was drinking 2-3 cans of Coke a day on top of 1-2 cups of coffee. It happened when I used to sell SW to fast food companies and we would go on site to install systems in local chains.

I would see women lining up at the drive thru at 6am and order large Diet cokes. The owner laughed when I commented and said it was the fast food and soft drink companies dirty littel secret. He said that the chains pull in millions a year from women addicted to diet coke and that he would see the same women hitting the drive thru in minivans sometimes 2-3 times a day to buy large diet cokes.

Cant imagine what that shtt does to your insides.

[gassy]

I'm close to you Juan--when I stopped drinking alcohol the DC intake went up. I've weened off a bit and drink ice water with real lemon or lime squeezed in it. Homemade iced tea I like too--all the bottled stuff tastes bad to me.

[gprsh924]

I try on only have 1 can per day. Some days I won't have any, sometimes 2 or 3. It often depends on how busy I am, as I do not drink coffee and will have a Diet Coke to get going when I have to wake up at 4am to study.

[LWJ]

Hey, just a quick thanks. I have kicked the habit for over a week now due to this thread.

That stuff is pure poison. I refer to diet drinks as "tomorrows cigarettes." Thanks for giving me the motivation to kick it.
Larry

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by Gogar

IMO you could start by switching from DC (aspartame) to Coke Zero (sucralose) immediately. and then ween yourself off of it.

On your advise, I bought a couple of bottles of Coke Zero, and found the following:

1. The taste is horrible. It is supposed to taste like regular (sugared) Coke, but I'm not seeing it, er tasting it I mean.

2. While Coke Zero does contain sucralose, it also contains aspartame as well. Oh goodie - two chemicals for the price of one!

-Z-man.

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by Z-man

2. While Coke Zero does contain sucralose, it also contains aspartame as well. Oh goodie - two chemicals for the price of one!

-Z-man.

Wow I didn't know that! In that case, why bother, I suppose.