I need help. I am addicted to Coke (the drink). I need to stop drinking it. I know it is not healthy. I drink around 6 cans per day (bad I know!) I am not overweight or unhealthy, but if I keep going like this I will be. My blood work from my dr is perfect!
I drink a lot of water. I have a coffee in the morning, then have water until around lunch. Then all afternoon I drink coke, have coke with dinner and then back to water again (which I drink through the night too). I drink around 2L of water per day.
I get bored with water. Which is why I drink coke. I don't drink juice, or tea, or cordial, sparkling water is gross, other soft drink I'm really not fussed on, I like smoothies but not often.
I am not drinking coke because I am bored. I get bored with only drinking water.
I've stopped drinking coke before but after a month or so I get bored with water (even with lemon or other flavours like that), so I started drinking it again.
I do go through withdrawal when I do stop drinking it but most of the time I get through it, but then boredom gets to me.
How can I stop getting bored with only drinking water? When I'm not drinking coke I do drink more water.
As I said before, my dr has run blood tests on me, and all of that comes back clear. No signs of any coke/sugar related diseases.
7 Replies
I would maybe focus on cutting back then cutting it out completely. What size can are you drinking? Switch to the small bottles so you don’t have to drink it all at once then cut back, instead of 6 have 5 get used to that then have 4 and so on. 1 small bottle a day or 2 on random days seems like a good goal. Good luck
I too had a coke addiction. I started by swapping to the mini cans instead of the larger ones.
I then went onto cola flavoured cordial with soda water, then normal water and eventually grew out of it.
I now only allow myself one can a day which is still a lot but fine by me.
I never get bottle sizes as I just guzzle through them.
Try thinking about the scale.
6 cans doesn't sound that bad but it actually equals 2.2 litres of soft drink a day which is obviously a lot. You'd also be spending a bit, assuming you spend $5-$10 a day you could potentially save $35 to $70 a week.
Really, it comes down to self control just like kicking any other habit and you have to re train yourself to like water and yeah water is boring but your teeth and stomach will thank you! Once your body gets used to not having so much caffeine and sugar in its system you will feel so much better, you don't actually realise how bad it makes you feel.
Some tips:
Add some orange, lime or lemon slices to your water.
Invest in a nice drink bottle.
Snack on veggies like cucumbers and celery to help keep you hydrated.
Keep your water cold, there's nothing more unappealing than room temperature water.
Chew sugar free gum when a coke craving hits.
Stop buying coke in bulk, it's why I don't buy it anymore. My husband and I went through a 24 pack in 2 days once, that's when I was like "nope, we're not doing this anymore".
A friend of mine was diagnosed with diabetes, she had quite a coke addiction too. She had to stop cold turkey but she found getting some diet sugar free cordial syrup and mixing it with soda water helped with the adjustment.
Good luck!
It sounds like you're not seeing any negative results so you dont see any reason to stop what you like doing. People need a motivation to change behaviours.
Maybe think about the long term effects, we know the facts it would be silly to wait for test results to show diseases. 6 cans a day, every day, is a lot!
I used to be like this with Pepsi max.
I just started cutting down. And for quiet a while, still had ONE glass with dinner every night as my treat. And then I started buying only 1 bottle a week (which didn’t do a full weeks worth for dinners anymore so I had to choose which night I wanted it with dinner) and now I buy maybe 1 small bottle if I have lunch out, or as a weekend treat.
You gotta love life and enjoy your favourite things BUT as they say, everything in moderation
I’m actually a little concerned. Your showing classic signs of diabetes. I know you’ve said you’ve had bloods, but it sounds like your almost self managing.
When I needed to cut back I started drinking sparkling mineral water with 50/50 apple juice. Curbed my cravings and after a while it just became habit.
I recently gave up diet coke for about the third time I think. I was like you drinking several cans a day. Everyone else in my household decided to give up soft drink permanently so I said I'd give to Diet Coke.
To ease withdrawal symptoms I cut down over 2 months. To begin with no more after 4pm, this helped so much with my sleep! Then it was cutting down on cans. Eventually I was one a day and I just said no more after this box and that was it. I still have the occasional one because I don't drink coffee so that's caffeine but it's manageable and at most once a week.