I’ve realised that I’m a little too fond of fizzy drinks. It’s not a severe addiction to the point of downing gallons, but I am drinking a 330ml can of Pepsi Max almost every day. Sometimes a little more.
Swap to a 0 calorie version and just keep enjoying it? Fizzy drinks are a pretty harmless vice in the grand scheme of things. Hollow calories, so if you can replace it with a 0 calorie version, it would at least stop affecting your weight.
I know everyone is against artificial sweeteners. They won’t kill you faster than microplastics, pollution, break pad dust, war, alcohol, smoking,…
Enjoy life! Enjoy a fizzy drink! I thoroughly enjoy my daily coke zero can.
Club soda or seltzer is a good start, if you want the fizz but not the sugar/flavor. If it’s the taste you like, try the syrup they make for fizzy water.
I kicked mine by winning a weight loss bet with a friend. Depression and anxiety caused the weight to come back, but I still haven’t had a soda in three years.
This is what I did as well. I also had to get some flavored water i found I liked the taste of and it helped to have a variety.
It costs ~$150 to build your own CO2 carbonation setup. After that, refills are pretty infrequent at ~$10. That gets you relatively unlimited sparkling water.
If you’re jonesing for specific flavors, flavor powders, extracts, and raw sucralose in bulk on Amazon will run you around $20, or ~$100 total for a decent assortment. It’ll pay for itself in like a year and the powders will last you awhile.
Is it the sweetness that you’re addicted to? The fizz itself maybe? There are drinks that are sweet yet not fizzy, and there are drinks that are fizzy yet not sweet. If you can find out, you can begin to substitute less unhealthy options. Then eventually quit entirely.
I love being a seltzer guy. Hop water is pretty good too.
BDS puts most of the big brand junkfood on the boycott list. Join the club.
What is BDS?
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, a Palestinian-led boycott of a small number of companies that are particularly heavily involved in Israeli apartheid and colonialism of Palestinians.
This feels like a trick… BDSM?
…no, BDS. There’s no M.
I did it, it started with not buying them and not including in any ordering of food, delivery or in restaurants. Step 1 was to replace it with sparking water and mixing a spoon or two of raw fruit reduction (no aded sugars or anything) (my wife kept doing this, while i did the cold turkey method i just coud not be bothered by this) Step 2 completely replace to sparkling water only. (i kinda jumped on this, but sometimes used to use my wife’s made fruit reduction, or sometimes she bought that from a local store, and sometimes i just felt fancy so, there is a method for a drink and here is how it goes.: Step 3: Fancy option / only for special occasons (lol). You buy the sparkling water in botles, (for the 250ml) you add a tea bag in it and turn them upside down, and put it back in the fridge. Then 20 mins later, you can add agave syrup if you want a bit or honey. You can also add mint leaves, and just throw them in the bottle you are going to consume 30 mins later or next day. Combine things like this, and then you have a fancy drink in the dridge whenever needed. (i never left the tea bags more than an hour in the bottoles, i would always get rid of the tea bag and put the bottle in my edc bag when leaving the house or something).
Don’t break it. Switch to kombucha. Synergy raw kombucha is 60 calories per ~450mL. Fizz is from fermentation, which gives it a little bit of alcohol but with a lot of probiotics that are good for your gut biome. I keep that and flavored carbonated water in rotation, along with plenty of filtered water.
What about the acidity though? Personally I love the taste of highly acidic beverages, but I’m worried if I drink them too often they could fuck up my teeth.
Rephrase this because you mention alcohol. Kombucha is non alcoholic and… Has .5 percent alc. Volume. So fear not people. Good for the gut microbiome too.
The comments here are fucking wild.
Outside of the caffeine, there’s nothing inherently special about a fizzy drink habit that would make it remarkable from other habits when it comes to giving it up. So a guide like https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-break-a-bad-habit-202205022736 could be useful.
that’s rather untrue. sugar is actually very addictive, and the quantity in soft drinks (they have additives that make them actually palatable - without they’d be so sweet you couldn’t drink much) makes them particularly problematic
OP said they’re drinking, Pepsi Max which has no sugar.
Wait. You can talk??
Talk? No. Type? Yes. (written from my Lappy 486)
Carbonated water helps
Stop drinking fizzy drinks
It’s not cocaine
I’m cured
things can be psychologically habit forming, like biting your nails or plucking body hair
Seltzer. Kombucha.
My trick? Have severe stomach issues requiring you to cut sodas out completely, and then just cut them out. I quit full cold turkey, no more caffeine, nothing but drinking water for at least a year, and then I started with a couple teas.
I have a soda stream and then several flavoring options. I have mio and other brands, then soda syrups, and cocktail mixers. That way I can control the amount of sweet. I personally don’t like the flavor of artificial sweeteners or stevia so I try to find ones that use real sugar and real fruit extract. There’s some with caffeine too.
FYI SodaStream is made in occupied West Bank territories.
It was a Christmas gift, but thanks for the heads up!
On the flip side, you can buy the CO2 bottle from other, compatible, brands (Indigo for example but there are others).
Breville makes one that uses a non-proprietary canister that can be refilled for a few dollars. We love ours.
I find coffee to be the best replacement but never liked sugary sodas, only the sugar-free ones.
I still have a diet soda now & then but not even once a week.