I drink too much soda

[BruinEric]

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i started treating pop like the olden days, where it was a novelty desert type thing, over two years ago. It really tastes awesome when i do drink it, which is hardly ever. Thats my philosophy on a lot of vices, like drugs. pop is the devil and will make you thirsty, jittery, and fat.

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Cool -- add to this that you should attempt to find sodas that use real sugar (i.e. not corn syrup). A nice cola made with cane sugar can be a really tasty treat.

I'm told that in some USA regions, you can actually find Coke with cane sugar (and no corn syrup) during Passover. The cap is different.

For some awesome sodas, go here:

http://www.sodapopstop.com/

you've gone from a human to a test lab animal. that is way too much nutrasweet/splenda/other chemical.

[Blarg]

Actually, 48 oz is just three cans of soda, and I do think that's moderate. A single king sized soda at a fast food dump can be much bigger than that.

Still, it's best to cut back. The sugar content alone is all the reason you need to reconsider drinking much soda at all. It messes with your sugar cycle and can lead to ups and downs and even wild swings physically, mentally, and emotionally, whether you're alert and aware enough to detect them, or not. This much sugar can make you more susceptible to adult onset diabetes Saying something like that could be considered a borderline scare tactic in earlier days when we ate very few prepared foods, which usually have a huge amount of sugar and salt in them, ate less, and exercised and simply walked more. But in the context of the average modern diet and lifestyle, we have to look at the cumulative effect of everything we're doing, not take things in isolation. Soda is an excellent way to accumulate negative health effects both immediately and carry negative health momentum into the future.

I say this as someone who has been a major cola addict myself, drinking huge amounts sometimes. I've cut back tremendously, and replaced it almost entirely.

For me, the thing is, I have normally had a fast metabolism and needed liquid of some sort to keep up with it, being frequently thirsty. I also got and get some kind of joy from the flavor and effect of cola -- for whatever reason, I find carbonation really great. I like the mouth feel of it, and an ice cold carbonated drink is heaven to me. I'd drink carbonated milk if they had it, seriously.

Mostly, it's best just to learn not to make a big deal of nature and resent it -- you don't NEED flavor all the time in everything, and shouldn't make a thing out of it. Water tastes like what it's supposed to, and that's perfectly fine.

However, it's nice to satisfy that flavor and moouth feel thing at least sometimes, too. I've found I really like seltzer water a lot. A LOT. The carbonation and light flavoring makes it actually almost as good as soda to me, but of course, there's no sugar or caffeine. Schweppes makes a lime flavor seltzer water that I love, even though it can be hard to find in stores.

Also, iced tea can be great, even without sugar. The straight, simple stuff, not the cans of it. You get the flavor but again get no sugar or weird crap, and get less caffeine by far than in soda. Heck, green tea even has been studied quite a bit for things like fat burning and anti-oxidant effects(killing off bad crap in your body).

There are cool tea sites on the internet that sell all kinds of really cool types of tea, from the ordinary stuff you might be used to, to exotic Chinese, Indian, and Japanese flavors, to of course things like herbal tea. Really good tea can be very tasty, hot or cold. It's got a lot of flavor if you're making it from the real leaves, not the powders you get from Lipton or such.

Hmmm...I'm going to make a post about it -- there were some tea connoisseurs here in OOT who turned me on to a tea site I used to visit, but I can't find the damn thing in my confused bookmarks after much aggravated searching. I gotta find that site again.

Anyway, you'll probably wind up feeling a good deal better and be more healthy if you cut soda way back, and there are good flavorful substitutes. And water isn't really so bad, as long as it's good water. I get Arrowhead home delivered and have a nice dispenser, so plenty of it is always cold and available. I like the change I made a lot. And, I like green tea, hot or cold, quite a bit too.

[IndieMatty]

Just want to say we have the same exact liquid habits. Of all the things I put in my body, diet soda is the least of my issues.

[IndieMatty]

He's drinking diet soda.

[BradleyT]

It's weird, I switched from regular Mt. Dew to diet and lost 30lbs. over 4 months without changing anything else. Now 2 years later I've gained back all that weight - eating habits haven't changed just my intake of diet soda.

I drink about 2x what you do though - I know it's terrible...

[TheBlueMonster]

your teeth are gonna rot and you're gonna get fat. Mr. Fatty fat fat. Drink more water and beer. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Cancer Merchant]

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your teeth are gonna rot and you're gonna get fat. Mr. Fatty fat fat. Drink more water and beer. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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*cough* it ain't called a soda gut now, is it.

[Blarg]

Ah, I'm no fan of that either.

Gives me a headache and makes it hard for me to sleep if I drink much of it. The muscles at the back of the neck and base of my skull knot up like iron. Phenylalanine sensitivity -- a strong amino acid that is actually given to schizophrenics and depressives sometimes -- is fairly common, apparently.

All types of soda suck health wise.

[BruinEric]

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Actually, 48 oz is just three cans of soda

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Nitpick moment:

A typical can of soda in my part of the country (CA) is 11.5 to 12 oz. This makes 48 oz of soda about FOUR cans.

If there is some part of the country where 16 oz cans are the predominant item sold, then I understand the disparity.