{"id":19694,"date":"2012-08-19T21:33:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T01:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/?p=19694"},"modified":"2024-01-16T12:10:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-16T17:10:26","slug":"sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired-cutting-out-soda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/real-life\/sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired-cutting-out-soda\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Cutting Out Soda"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/p>\n

Hi, my name is Toni and I’m a coke addict.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Now for the ten people who are completely freaking out, it’s Coca-Cola, not the other stuff I’m talking about.<\/p>\n

It started when I was working my way through college at restaurants where soda was free and unlimited. I got use to having it on a daily basis. I’d quit when I was pregnant (although not every time) because I knew all the caffeine and sugar couldn’t be good for a baby.<\/p>\n

Of course I would pick it up pretty quickly after the baby was born, justifying my daily habit due to the lack of sleep and busyness of my day. I needed that jolt of energy to keep going.<\/p>\n

As time went on and our family grew so did my dependence on soda. If I didn’t have one by lunch I’d get a headache. Some days I’d have two or three, depending on how the day was going. It was okay, because it was the only “bad” thing I was consuming. I ate fresh ground whole grain pasta and pizza. I drank smoothies and ate lots of vegetables.<\/p>\n

\"how<\/a><\/p>\n

Couldn’t I have just one vice?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The problem was that I couldn’t live without it.<\/p>\n

While driving home from the gym a few months ago I stopped to get a Big Gulp. As I sipped it throughout the day I started thinking about how much harder I would have to work at the gym to burn the sugar and calories in the soda. Since in the beginning I really, really disliked the gym the thought of anything that would make it easier was appealing to me.<\/p>\n

I knew I had to quit, and I knew it was going to be hard. I needed to be prepared for a pretty big headache and the general irritation that comes when people give up caffeine.<\/p>\n

I asked a few friends to hold me accountable during the first week. I gave them permission to text me, call me, message me at any time to check up on me.<\/p>\n

To my surprised the first day was actually very easy. Day two was easy too. I kept waiting to get a headache or feel cranky but I didn’t. I believe that the only reason I didn’t suffer from these symptoms was because I was going to the gym every morning and eating a whole foods diet.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By the end of the week I felt so good I decided to cut out other items I ate that contained sugar. I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, but I started paying attention to the foods I was eating and choosing to not eat the ones that had a ton of sugar.<\/p>\n

The less sugar I consumed, the more I craved fruit.<\/strong> <\/em>At a church conference I ate almost an entire bag of clementines by myself!<\/p>\n

Not only did sweet things not appeal to me at all, I started dropping weight very quickly. I didn’t start the process to lose weight, but I ended up losing almost 20 pounds. Getting leaner made exercising easier and the cycle continued.<\/p>\n

Since giving up soda in May I’ve had a few cokes (on road trips when it was either fall asleep behind the wheel or ingest a bunch of sugar and caffeine). I don’t like the taste anymore and although it definitely kept me awake, I didn’t like the fact that at the end of the day I couldn’t fall asleep.<\/p>\n

I never thought I could make it through the day without caffeine. But I can.<\/strong> <\/em>After about a week of giving up soda my energy level increased dramatically. Not only that, but I started drinking more water. Without the sugary sweetness of soda, fruits taste so much better and I find myself craving things like grapes and oranges like someone would crave a piece of chocolate.<\/p>\n

To be honest when I gave up coke I also had to give up my gateway foods. Gateway foods were foods that “went well” with coke. I didn’t think I could eat them without drinking a soda.<\/p>\n

Foods like burgers, fries, pizza, tacos were suddenly off limits. For those of you who know me you know that a hamburger and fries is probably my favorite meal in the world! I waited until I had been soda free for almost six weeks until I had a burger again, and skipped the fries altogether.<\/p>\n

The biggest problem with my soda drinking is that I felt I deserved it. I worked hard, didn’t get much sleep, managed seven kids, and had a slew of other responsibilities. What started as an occasional “treat” become something I needed every single day. All my healthy eating wasn’t enough to counterbalance the soda drinking.<\/p>\n

Giving up soda changed my entire diet and in my next installment I’ll share with you the changes I made to my diet that helped me get my life back.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I’m not criticizing people who drink soda occasionally. I still think pizza tastes best with a large fountain coke, I just know I can’t eat like that all the time\u00a0and feel great. I was not an occasional soda drinker and that’s why I needed to make some drastic changes.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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