Thread: Adventures in giving up soda...

Well, I did give up soda (massive diet Pepsi drinker, was drinking 6-8 cans a day). It's frickin' hard... ALmost on to par with giving up smokes. Yes, that bad. (Maybe it's the caffeine I'm addicted to?)

On the positive side, I'm less tempted by chocolate, chips and other assorted junk foods. Perhaps it's an association thing bc soda goes so well with that stuff. Drinking water, iced green tea or juice (I don't drink coffee) makes it easier to reach for the fruits, nuts and seeds when I snack.

However... I don't know what the hell is going on with my digestive system: ever since I gave up pop, my digestive system is s-l-o-w. I'm so bloated that I look pregnant, I have massive gas pains and I'm constipated. My diet hasn't changed, I'm still eating lots of fiber (steel cut oatmeal, whole wheat bread for sandwiches for my lunches, bran buds mixed with yogurt for snacks, etc...) and at least 6-7 portions of veggies/fruit, sometimes more.

I've never had this sort of issues before and it's kind of freaking me out. If anything, consuming less carbonated beveraged should deflate me, not the opposite, right? ANd the few women I've discussed this with have all said to get myself some gas-x and some dulcolax ..c:: While I'm sure those are valuable aides for temporary discomfort, I'm reluctant as I don't want to rely on any medication for my body to do what it has to do daily. (Actually, I hate taking medication for anything.)

Did any of you give up soda? What was it like? DId you have similar problems? If yes, did they ever go away?

I'm .w.:..c::..cr.:

Originally Posted by kemintiri

Well, I did give up soda (massive diet Pepsi drinker, was drinking 6-8 cans a day). It's frickin' hard... ALmost on to par with giving up smokes. Yes, that bad. (Maybe it's the caffeine I'm addicted to?)

On the positive side, I'm less tempted by chocolate, chips and other assorted junk foods. Perhaps it's an association thing bc soda goes so well with that stuff. Drinking water, iced green tea or juice (I don't drink coffee) makes it easier to reach for the fruits, nuts and seeds when I snack.

However... I don't know what the hell is going on with my digestive system: ever since I gave up pop, my digestive system is s-l-o-w. I'm so bloated that I look pregnant, I have massive gas pains and I'm constipated. My diet hasn't changed, I'm still eating lots of fiber (steel cut oatmeal, whole wheat bread for sandwiches for my lunches, bran buds mixed with yogurt for snacks, etc...) and at least 6-7 portions of veggies/fruit, sometimes more.

I've never had this sort of issues before and it's kind of freaking me out. If anything, consuming less carbonated beveraged should deflate me, not the opposite, right? ANd the few women I've discussed this with have all said to get myself some gas-x and some dulcolax ..c:: While I'm sure those are valuable aides for temporary discomfort, I'm reluctant as I don't want to rely on any medication for my body to do what it has to do daily. (Actually, I hate taking medication for anything.)

Did any of you give up soda? What was it like? DId you have similar problems? If yes, did they ever go away?

I'm .w.:..c::..cr.:

Yes, I'm on 1 full week with NO Coke or chocolate. Just WATER. Yay, I think.
I'm not expierencing any gas or digestive issue b/c I'm still eating pretty healthy, nothing has changed other than cutting out soda and sweets.

I'm going to guess that you are drinking alot of water now????? If so, you might be expierencing water bloat. I pee more now than I have in years. The toilet has become my second home...l;, Sorry, I'm sure that was TMI....

Yes, I would suggest Beano as well for gas problems.

Oh wow, you are brave! Giving up soda would turn me into a real beyatch. But I have noticed that when I cut down my bloating increases too. I thought bicarbonate soda would help - maybe you can go to the vitamin store and ask about that?

I am an avid Coca Cola drinker and while I don't have 6 a day I do drink about 2 a day. I have cut down from about 4 previously. Some days I can go without one but it is hard. I have never experienced the bloating you describe infact less Coke has helped decrease my bloat. What interested me in particular is your question about medication. I have had an addiction to both laxatives (about 10 years ago) and stool softeners (about 2 years ago after pregnancy) so if at all possible try an avoid them if you feel you may become addicted. Good luck. BTW I love peach ice tea and substitute it on many days.

Hi there, I feel your pain! I gave it up soda and chocolate almost 4 years ago for lent. The first two weeks was very hard, it was like an addiction. I was crabby and like a drug junkie... I was searching all over the house for sodas (diet coke).,m:: It was very hard to overcome, but remember, it takes your body 21 days (3 weeks) to kick a bad habit, so be patient. I was also addicted (still am) to caffeine, so the fact that I was not having sodas and I was getting these massive headaches was not good...cr.: I had to resort to drink iced teas (which I did not liked at all back then) and now that is all I drink, and water of course. Since I have quit the soda habit, I allow myself one a week as a treat, I am secure of myself to where I will not start the bad habit again.
Now that you are on your journey to quitting sodas, you will notice a drop in weight, since sodas have a lot of sodium, so there is your positive side to kicking the habit. Good luck and may the force be with you!..l;,

I gave up diet coke, and did not notice any digestive symptoms or bloating. I did get caffeine withdrawal headaches at first.
I stopped keeping soda in the house when I gave it up, but did allow myself to have it when I was out. I did make some 7-11 runs the first few weeks, but really I'm too lazy to go to that much trouble to get a drink. Now even when I'm in a restaurant I prefer water most of the time. I seemed to have lost my taste for the soda.

Congratulations on cutting the soda from your diet! Many people don't realize that artificial sweeteners can be very damaging to the body - see this book: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Deception-Splenda-NutraSweet-Hazardous/dp/0785221794/]Amazon.com: Sweet Deception: Why Splenda, NutraSweet, and the FDA May Be Hazardous to Your Health (9780785221791): Dr. Joseph Mercola , Dr. Kendra Degen Pearsall: Books[/ame]

Any time you do a significant diet change, it'll take your GI tract a bit of time to react. I'm sure it's very uncomfortable, perhaps even painful, but you've taken an important step toward better health and your body will adapt to this change. You're doing exactly what you should - eating healthy foods.

There's a natural laxative in apples, pears, peaches, and prunes called sorbitol. You may want to incorporate some of these into your daily diet until your issues sort themselves out.

I gave up sodas quite a while back when they all started moving from sugar to artificial sweeteners (because those are migraine triggers for me). I didn't have any digestive issues when I quit, but it did take my body about a month to adjust to drinking water instead. Now if I decide to have a soda (even the still-sugar ones), I feel sick afterward, so it is a lot easier to stay away from them.

The Caffeine in the soda has a laxative effect on the body...coffee drinkers will know what I'm referring to probably...usually after the second cup of the morning, one goes for one's "morning constitutional" as my grandmother put it.

Once you are adjusted to the change, your system will level out and you'll lose the bloat and constipation. Shira's suggestions are right on the mark, apples, pears, prunes etc are your ticket to "release" in this situation. Keep drinking lots of water, it will also help flush your system out. If you are very uncomfortable, consider having a colon cleanse done...it sounds yucky, but will speed the process up dramatically.

*** I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express****

Good luck,

I gave up soda too, so I know your struggle!

Did you stop soda or replace it with water? Getting more water might help.

Are you getting plenty of leafy greens? I know you said fruits and veggies, but it's the leafy greens that really do the trick, in addition to Shira's suggestions.

And like Zaynah said, your system will probably even out. When our body gets used to something, sometimes it takes time for it to adjust to the new pattern.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by zaynahcantara

The Caffeine in the soda has a laxative effect on the body...coffee drinkers will know what I'm referring to probably...usually after the second cup of the morning, one goes for one's "morning constitutional" as my grandmother put it.

Once you are adjusted to the change, your system will level out and you'll lose the bloat and constipation. Shira's suggestions are right on the mark, apples, pears, prunes etc are your ticket to "release" in this situation. Keep drinking lots of water, it will also help flush your system out. If you are very uncomfortable, consider having a colon cleanse done...it sounds yucky, but will speed the process up dramatically.

*** I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express****

Good luck,

That's interesting... I don't drink coffee so I never knew it has that effect. It goes a long way to explain what's going on. I have a friend who ventured that since there is acid in the soda, it helps the body break the food down faster. I wonder if that could be the case too?

I do drink a lot of water (8 glasses, plus the iced teas.) Perhaps I'll get some prune juice I feel glamorous already LOL I'll skip the colon cleanse though. *g*

Originally Posted by *Shira*

Congratulations on cutting the soda from your diet! Many people don't realize that artificial sweeteners can be very damaging to the body

Any time you do a significant diet change, it'll take your GI tract a bit of time to react. I'm sure it's very uncomfortable, perhaps even painful, but you've taken an important step toward better health and your body will adapt to this change. You're doing exactly what you should - eating healthy foods.

There's a natural laxative in apples, pears, peaches, and prunes called sorbitol. You may want to incorporate some of these into your daily diet until your issues sort themselves out.

Thanks for the book rec. I read "The end of overeating" and that helped me greatly to move towards a cleaner diet (aka the Tosca Reno Clean Diet). Looks like this book has the same sort of eye popping info in it, will put it on my wishlist.

I read about aspartame but it seemed like there was just as much yay buzz as nay buzz online. I didn't like the idea of consuming it, but then it (and other sweeteners) is such a part of food geared towards health conscious folks that I thought "well, must be ok if it's on the shelf"... I have now replaced soda with iced teas. I use Tetley's bags for convenience and wide selection (green, blueberry-ginseng, chamomille-lemon, rooibos).
Rooibos makes an excellent iced tea BTW. I sweeten it with with honey about 1 tablespoon for a 2L pitcher. I'm not ready to go completely "sweet-free" yet *g*

Leafy greens... Well, I like spinach, have it 2-3 times a week. Broccoli. Although it tends to be mostly those "steam in the bag" veggies. I'll do roasted veggies from scratch but when I have to work overtime, I tend to default to quick and easy stuff, like frozen veggies that steam in the bag. I get home, toss one bag in the nuker and have at it.

I have made lots of changes to my diet over the past couple of years. I never fully realized that until my mom laughed at me for saying that Raisin Bran is (IMHO) junk cereal.

Thanks everyone chiming in, this is really helpful.

When I decided to reduce my soda intake I started drinking sparkling water and would add a little 100% juice to it if I wanted some flavor. It helped. But then again, it was the carbonation that I missed more than the caffeine. I still drink a cup of coffee in the morning, and on the occasion two, with a little soy. My rule is no coffee after 11am.

Good luck!

Tammy

I quit soda about two months ago for two reasons: it ruins your teeth (was drinking it with a straw for the last two years) and it's bad for your body/stomach/intestines. I was not addicted to the stuff, maybe one-two servings a day.

Since quitting I notice less craving for food with refined sugar. I also had serious gas issues for about six weeks, very embarrassing especially during class. Now I'm fine and feeling good.

I read an article recently (Cosmo? InStyle?) that reported non sugar sweeteners are actually much sweeter than real sugar and that they contribute to sugar cravings. Interesting....

the idea that you can clean your zills with cola really killed the cravings for me...that and when I went to university it became a luxury item I could cut.

My mom sent me this a while ago too
This is really an eye opener . . . Water or Cola? We all know that water is important but I've never seen it written down like this before.

WATER

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.

2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.

3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.

4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

And now for the properties of Cola:

1. In many states (in the USA) the highway patrol carries two gallons of coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.

2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.

3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola in! to the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Cola removes stains from vitreous China.

4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.

5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.

6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.

7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Cole for a sumptuous brown gravy.

8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of cola into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains.

9. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

10. The active ingredient in Cola is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.

11. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for Highly corrosive materials.

12. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!

Now the question is, would you like a cola or a glass of water?

get some colon cleanse....it will get you to your new normal.

Are you drinking enough tea to keep your digestive tract going? Your body has probably become used to a caffeine "prod" to keep things moving. Drink tea or coffee until you feel better, then start decreasing your intake of that slowly, if you feel you're getting too much caffeine. Good luck!..g.:

I think there are multiple things going on here:

1. caffeine definitely speeds up the digestive system, so quitting caffeine will slow it down. I have experienced this, except in my case stress and caffeine were, ah, making everything run through the pipes way too fast, and I had to quit a heavy espresso habit just to normalize things.

2. If your body had accustomed itself to all the acid in the soda, quitting it could be leaving your digestive chemistry out of kilter.

3. Ditto your flora of symbiotic bacteria and yeasts. You have radically changed their environment.

It might have been better for you to decrease your diet soda intake over a period of weeks for a while in order to ramp yourself off of them. Adding one per day back in for a while might still be helpful to you.

I gave up the Diet Coke for a looong time but I started drinking agian. Boo for me!

Looking back now, I should have quit gradually, but I didn't. That being said, I'm not going to drink diet pop again, probably never again. I just watched this:

Aspartame: Sweet Misery A Poisoned World

And this:

Fat, MSG, Aspartame, It's in all the food

It was long, but it's worth it. Perhaps if I didn't have so many digestive issues right now due to a drastic reduction of my aspartame intake; I would have taken it in stride, or plain just wouldn't have seeked it out. But now... It's like the veil has been lifted and I can't go back. I've gone through the cupboards and threw out the few packets of Crystal Light and other aspartame/nutrasweet/whatever artificially sweetened items. Now before you chalk me up as raving mad, here's the other reason: my issues still have not resolved themselves. I went from majorly constipated and extremely painful gassy to (sorry for the grossness) violent diarrhea and back again to painful gassy and constipated. I have changed nothing else in my diet, no new foods or drinks. There no new external factors whatsoever.

I've called Tele-Health and the nurse recommended to stay away from diet pop or diet anything and to make sure that I stay hydrated (no problem, i drink my eight squares every day) and eat bland food (so the spice doesn't irritate my GI tract). She asked about my breathing, vision/dizziness and swelling. I have none of that and my headaches are pretty much gone, so no need for the doc just yet.

By all accounts, this should over soon; but in the meantime, it's goddamn painful, I'll tell you that.

Sorry if I have grossed out anyone. What I do hope is that, even I have, it will motivate someone to stop ingesting this dangerous compoound. I've drank at least a six pack of diet pepsi for at least a decade. Lord only knows what sort of damage it has done to my insides. .w.:..cr.:

Oh my gosh.....I hope you feel better kemintiri.......

I too have been a diet coke addict and quit drinking it about a week ago. I had one yesterday and it tasted really weird.

After reading all of this I am totally freaked out.

Eshe, I cant believe all of that stuff, "cleans blood of the road" Ewwww.......I had no idea.

You might try a probiotic supplement to try to repopulate your gut with good bacteria? Even if it didn't help, it probably wouldn't hurt.

You might also try a serving or two of black or green tea, or coffee to see if adding a bit of caffeine back could alleviate some of your symptoms.

Congrats on giving up soda! I did that a number of years ago as well as caffeine (about 12 years ago). I pretty much water with herbal teas and decaf coffees. Once in awhile I will indulge and have a soda, but since most restaurants/fast food places don't carry diet AND decaf sodas, I stick to my H2O instead.

Originally Posted by kemintiri

Leafy greens... Well, I like spinach, have it 2-3 times a week. Broccoli. Although it tends to be mostly those "steam in the bag" veggies. I'll do roasted veggies from scratch but when I have to work overtime, I tend to default to quick and easy stuff, like frozen veggies that steam in the bag. I get home, toss one bag in the nuker and have at it.

I have made lots of changes to my diet over the past couple of years. I never fully realized that until my mom laughed at me for saying that Raisin Bran is (IMHO) junk cereal.

Thanks everyone chiming in, this is really helpful.

Eat them daily.

A really easy way to do this is the green smoothie. I feel like I've become the official spokesperson b/c I love them and have one daily. Blend together any combo of your favorite fruits - I use frozen blueberries, raspberries, peaches, etc and a fresh banana - and a handful of kale or spinach. You'll only taste the fruits, but be getting the benefits of greens.

Besdies, it's so fast and easy that it's a good on-the-way-to-work breakfast.

But even if you reject the smoothie idea, try to get a daily does of leafy greens.

I'm much better now. My system is running normally although I do have to up my intake of fiber in the morning to keep things moving nicely. Probiotic yogourt gave me the runs initially but they're doing their job now. I must say that it wasn't an easy ride to quit soda. Would have been easier on my sytem if I'd done it gradually but I don't do gradual. Whther it is cigs or soda or junk food, i have to quit cold turkey or I'm screwed. The positive side is that I strongly doubt that I will want to go through that again, hence I'm probably done with soda for a good long time.

I like the idea of the fruit smothie Leyla. What do you mix with, water? Juice?

Great to hear you're doing better!

I usually put a little water in just to help get the blending started, but I've also used juice.