Soda, despite its widespread appeal, is recognized as detrimental to health, linked to obesity, poor dental health, and various chronic diseases. Quitting soda, especially after years of consumption, involves more than just willpower. The brain's reward system, designed to reinforce survival actions like eating, releases dopamine, a feel-good chemical, when we consume food. High-sugar foods like soda trigger an excessive dopamine release, leading the brain to crave more for a similar pleasure response.
Tips to Help You Stop Drinking Soda
If you’re trying to stop drinking soda, the follow tips may help.
- Address Thirst: Soda cravings can sometimes be mistaken for thirst. When the urge strikes, try drinking a large glass of water and waiting a few minutes to see if the craving subsides.
- Distract Yourself: Distance yourself from the thought of soda by engaging in activities like going for a walk or taking a shower. Shifting your environment and thought process can help stop the craving completely.
- Remove Temptation: Ensure that there's no soda in your household or easily accessible areas to minimize cravings.
- Find Healthy Alternatives: Curb the urge to drink soda by replacing it with healthier sweet alternatives such as fruits like apples, berries, pineapple, mangoes, and grapes, sugar-free chewing gum, or yogurt with a few small pieces of fruit. Avoid fruit juices as they are high in sugar despite containing more nutrients than soda.
- Manage Stress: Studies show that stress can lead to increased calorie consumption and cravings. Relieve stress through regular exercise, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and mindfulness.
- Enjoy Mocktails: Mocktails can be a great way to reduce your soda intake.
- Opt for Refreshing Substitutes: Replace soda with healthier options that provide a refreshing kick, including infused sparkling water, sparkling green tea, water with mint and cucumber, herbal or fruit teas, and coconut water.
- Inform Your Social Circle: Let the people closest to you know that you’re trying to quit drinking soda. This way they can help you stay accountable and on track.
The Initial Challenges of Quitting
When you cut back on drinking soda, you may experience side effects. If you’re used to drinking several cans of soda per day, you may experience symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, as most popular soda brands contain caffeine. Symptoms of caffeine withdrawal include headaches, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, and low energy.
Positive Changes After Quitting Diet Soda
Mental Clarity
Headaches from diet soda withdrawal aren’t uncommon. In fact, you’ll probably find yourself thinking clearer than you have in a while. That’s because the chemicals that make up the artificial sweetener aspartame may have altered your brain chemicals, nerve signals and your brain’s reward system, which can lead to headaches, anxiety and insomnia.
Heightened Taste Sensitivity
Once you stop drinking diet soda, you may find that your food has more flavor. Artificial sweeteners in diet soda overwhelm your taste buds with sweetness-aspartame is 200 times sweeter than table sugar. Brain scans show that diet soda alters sweet receptors in the brain and prolongs sugar cravings rather than satisfies them.
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Weight Management
Most people start drinking diet soda to help lose weight. But you might lose more weight giving it up. A recent study found that older adults who drank diet soda continued to pack on belly fat. Research also found that each daily diet soda increases your chance of becoming obese in the next decade by 65%. Another study found that drinking diet soda daily was associated with metabolic syndrome (obesity, high blood pressure, high triglycerides) that can lead to heart disease and diabetes.
Improved Bone Strength
Giving up diet soda can be one of the best ways to improve bone strength and reduce your risk of bone fractures. One 2014 study found that each daily soda increased the chance of hip fracture by 14% for postmenopausal women. And another found that older women who drank cola had lower bone mineral density in their hips.
Healthier Food Choices
Since diet sodas have zero calories, research has found that people who drink them feel it’s okay to indulge in other places. This means making poor food choices, such as eating a burger and fries, a piece of cake or a bag of potato chips, because they feel they can afford to splurge. Plus, many of us accompany unhealthy foods with soda.
Better Alcohol Tolerance
Here’s a surprising fact: diet soda gets you drunk faster. When mixed with alcohol, your stomach empties out faster than with regular soda causing a drastic increase in blood alcohol concentrations. A study in the American Journal of Medicine found that when you add caffeine, look out.
Reduced Risk of Fat Storage and Diabetes
A study in Diabetes Care found that drinking two-thirds of a diet soda before eating primed the pancreas to release a lot of fat-storing hormone insulin. When the pancreas is overworked from creating insulin to control blood-sugar levels, diabetes rears its head.
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Improved Kidney Function
Now that your body no longer has to make sense of the unpronounceable ingredients in diet soda, your kidneys can get back to clearing toxins, stabilizing blood pressure, and absorbing minerals.
Personal Experiences with Quitting Diet Coke
Many individuals have shared their experiences of quitting diet soda, highlighting the challenges and benefits they encountered.
One person described feeling like something was missing after giving up a liter-a-day Diet Coke habit. The ritual of having a "treat to look forward to" was missed. However, after a few weeks, they experienced increased energy, reduced brain fog, and improvements in skin and eye health.
Another individual, who had been a Coca-Cola drinker for as long as they could remember, found the initial withdrawal to be grueling. They coped by switching to watermelon-flavored Red Bulls, iced coffee, and green tea. After the first week, the soda cravings subsided, and they experienced better sleep, increased energy, and reduced bloating.
One journalist, who had a daily Diet Coke habit, found that replacing it with a sugary Starbucks drink wasn't a healthy alternative. However, they eventually switched to green tea and realized that they were doing many things out of habit rather than choice.
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Strategies for Quitting Soda
- Replace with Water: Keep a bottle of water handy at all times and when the soda cravings hit, quench them with water.
- Replace the Fizz with Sparkling Water: Sparkling water is a fun and fizzy alternative to sticky soda.
- Replace the Caffeine with Coffee or Tea: If caffeine is what makes you a soda junkie, find a better source of it. Coffee and tea are healthier alternatives and can keep you just as alert and on top of your day.
- Don’t Go Cold Turkey: Ease out of your soda habit a few ounces at a time.
- Do Go Cold Turkey: Set yourself up for success by choosing a date to quit, psyching yourself up for it, and then committing to it when the day comes.