My soda intake has been way above where it should be. I would start out the day with a 64 oz refill from the gas station on the way to work. That would usually be gone by noon. Then if I went out to eat for lunch, I’d get a large (usually 44 oz) drink and likely refill it at least once if I ate inside the restaurant. Then before the night was over I’d go through another 2 liter bottle, sometimes more. On the plus side I only drank diet soda so I wasn’t drinking thousands of calories worth of sugar every day. On the negative side, thats over 600mg of sodium per day (nearly 25% of my daily recommended intake) on average and I’m sure all the rest of the chemicals in there aren’t the best for me either.
Today marks 1 week with no soda intake at all. I decided if I was going to break my habit I was going to do it cold turkey, then add a little back in later on if I wanted. I was afraid if I didn’t do it that way I would have a smaller soda, then later on in the day, “Just one more…” and before I knew it I would still be drinking way too much. My goal is to go 30 days with no caffeinated or carbonated drinks. This includes soda, coffee, tea, and even 7-11 Slurpees. Nothing but water, a little fruit juice, and maybe some flavored drinks such as Kool-Aid. Then If I still want to by that point, I may go back to a reasonable intake level such as one or two servings per day.
The hardest part was the first few days when I was going through caffeine withdrawls. The low dull headaches got pretty bad, but I assaulted them with tylenol and some chocolate (small amounts of caffeine) just to keep the edge off. After about the 3rd day it hasn’t been an issue at all.
Another affect I’ve noticed is I can fall asleep more easily at night. I’ve always been one that could drink a cup of coffee or some soda right before bed and not have any issues, but then bedtime has always been in the 1:00-2:00 neighborhood for me. Now when I decide to turn the tv/book/whatever I’m doing off I can fall asleep almost immediately, where before I would lay there until 1:00-2:00 even if I went to bed earlier.
There have been a couple of days where I’ve been tempted to run downstairs to the vending machine and grab a can, but so far I’ve been able to stay true to my goal.