Soft drinks and weight. Mid Nov I stopped drinking

[alfredo]

soft drinks. I went to tea instead. Over then next few weeks I lost 5 lbs.

Today I weighed myself and I am keeping the weight off. I am exercising less than back then so it isn't exercise.

Maybe I am on to something. have you experienced weight loss from avoiding soft drinks?

[texanwitch]

1. I lost ten pounds very quickly after I stopped drinking soft drinks.

I have lost more since then.

[alfredo]

4. I want to lose 20lbs so I am thinking I will have to do

more. I know that going back to being a vegetarian would make a difference, but my wife is on medicines that need the protein in meat.

[amitten]

2. Soft drinks are fattening. Even the diet ones.

The carbonation and acidity screws up your system. I only drink them once in awhile...the less often you drink them, the less you crave them.

[alfredo]

3. Green tea or black tea seem to kill my appetite.

I think much of my hunger is actually thirst.

[SPKrazy]

5. Soft Drinks Contain High Fructose Corn Syrup Unless They Are Diet

Fructose isn't bad, but in the amounts that are in soft drinks it messes up your triglycerides and is too much for you. Fructose in fruit is in small amounts and not bad for you.

I avoid soft drinks because of the carbonation mainly, but tea is better for you

[alfredo]

6. I don't have much faith in the safety of sugar substitues,

and in the case of Aspartame, I hate the taste.

I use honey and/or a bit of sugar in my teas. I try not to drink them sweet.

[SPKrazy]

8. Aspartame=Bad Stuff IMO

The only one that is really thought of as being very safe I think is Splenda.

I don't put anything in teas. I use granulated sugar or honey, or nothing. I don't use Splenda, Aspartame, or anything else. Aspartame hurts my stomach, and bothered my esophagus a LOT.

[alfredo]

10. It gives my sister a headache, and it tastes metalic to me.

White tea with a bit of honey tastes wonderful.


I read that putting milk in tea blocks the healthy benefits of tea. That's why they thought it was only green tea that was healthy. Many people put milk in black teas and that could account for the difference. The casein in milk is the culprit they said.

[liberal hypnotist]

7. What soft drinks contain

Not only will you lose weight, you'll help your kidneys. Each can of soda has a tablespoon of salt.

[hippywife]

9. I lost 14lbs just by

drinking only water and an occassional iced tea with stevia or hot tea with honey. Also stopped drinking juices and switched to eating the actual fruits.

We also avoid anything on the store shelves that include high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. And you'd be surprised what you can find it in. I even found it in bread crumbs!

[alfredo]

11. I've had a general rule of avoiding the interior of groceries,

only considering what they have on the walls. The processed junk is in the isles.

[hippywife]

13. Last week on the Diane Rehm show on NPR

she was talking to two doctors who told you what to avoid when reading ingredients on labels:

Don't buy it if these things are in the first five ingredients:
Simple sugars:
*anything that ends in -ose: sugars
*anything that ends in -lol: sugar alcohols
*syrups: corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup
Saturated fats:
*transfats (partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or vegetable oil blend)
*coconut oil
*palm oil
Enriched flours: why did it have to be enriched?

Most of your breakfast and lunch should be high fiber foods. Also get as much of your protein as possible from other sources besides animal proteins.

They also recommended eating a small amount of good fats 25-30 minutes before a meal: 6 walnuts, 12 almonds. 20 peanuts, or a little olive oil to get your mind to trigger the receptors that say "Okay, I'm not hungry anymore."

All sounded like good advice. They wrote a book called "You on a Diet: The Owners Manual for Waist Management" that I'm going to try to check into.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

25. For the record though,simple sugars aren't bad, it's just getting too much of them and not enough of

others. Complex carbs are probably better for the most part though

[hippywife]

28. Simple sugars are

empty calories that the body converts and stores as fat. They didn't say to avoid them all together, just not to purchase foods that list them in the first five ingredients on the label because that means they will most likely exceed a recommended limit of 4 gm. per serving.

[alfredo]

29. Thank you. I love walnuts and pecans. Sunflower seeds

are a weakness.

[Lyric]

12. Yep. I lost 80 lbs 2 years ago.

Not solely from foregoing pop and other sugary drinks, but that played a big part in it.

[Digit]

14. Congratulations! I am impressed!

You are an inspiration!

I am trying to lose weight and it is quite difficult.
I only drink diet sodas, but am trying to switch to water...also cutting out some bread portions.

[Lyric]

19. Thank you! Photographic evidence here:

The pic to the left was taken about a year before I started losing weight. I stopped drinking all sugared drinks, period. I replaced those drinks with clear flavored water, sweetened with Splenda. I stopped eating fatty cuts of meat and started eating more chicken breast, lean beef, and whole grains. I wasn't actually trying to lose weight, per se--I was trying to become healthier, because I felt like crap all the time. I didn't drown myself in salads--I just cut portion sizes and ate more often throughout the day to keep from being hungry. I didn't stop eating pasta and potatoes--I just ate less of them. I started using small "saucer" plates instead of big dinner plates. I didn't join a gym, I just played outside with my kid a lot more, kicking a soccer ball around, or using a clothesline as a makeshift volleyball net. We walked to the playground instead of driving. We walked the neighborhood for Halloween instead of driving. Things like that.

I started dropping weight like crazy, and all of the sudden my back problems got better, my energy level went up, and I felt more clear-headed and "alive" than I had in years.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

21. Amazing transformation.

Congrats! :toast:

[auntAgonist]

23. WTG! congrats and continued good health to you! n/t

[alfredo]

30. Wow!!

Roasted and steamed veggies seem to replace stir fried goodies I am so drawn to.

When I make soups I try to make clear broth soups. I use meat as a flavoring, though sometimes a hunk of meat is OK.

[Digit]

36. WOW!

You go, girl!
:applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[Beausoir]

49. Heartiest congrats to you! You were and are beautiful.

I'm down about 30 pounds since September.

Gave up the coca cola and am eating more, smaller meals during the day.

Need to up my exercise level now.

[hippywife]

31. Really great job!

The pictures are amazing! It's great that it's been so gradual which is more indicative of a lifestyle change rather than a diet. You're more likely to keep it off that way.

Wishing you continued success! :hi:

[Blue_In_AK]

15. Good job, Alfredo...

Sadly, I've reached the point where I've given up just about everything that the diet people recommend, and I STILL can't lose weight, even this summer when I was walking about 15 miles a week. I guess I'm stuck with this body.

[LizW]

16. Exactly the same for me

I was a Diet Coke addict. I somewhere read that aspartame is an appetite stimulant, and also has a lot of other bad health effects. In October I went off the stuff cold turkey, and I dropped five pounds in less than two weeks. It has stayed off, and I have not consciously changed anything else about my diet or activity level. I have found that I naturally drink a lot more water. I was used to having a Diet coke in my hand constantly, and I had to replace it with something, so I keep a water bottle on my desk all the time.

[emmadoggy]

61. This is me.

Major Diet Coke addict. I simply HAVE to stop. For my health, weight and BUDGET!! I have actually tried and almost gotten there a couple of times, but then I get weak and give in to the craving. :evilfrown: I don't know what it is about the stuff but I CRAVE it so bad!! I did not know the part about it being an appetite stimulant!! Wow! Thanks for that tidbit - I am a stay-at-home mom so giving in to little snacky cravings is easy to do and hard to resist.

I have a LOT of weight to lose and I know that this is one of the first things I need to do. It is oh-so-hard, but I have to try again. Reading this thread is giving me the inspiration to give it another go.

[wildeyed]

17. I believe it.

When I quit smoking years and years ago, I took up a serious tea habit. In the afternoon, I spoon two teaspoons of loose green tea into my favorite teapot and brew and re-brew it all afternoon. So in addition to being healthy, I save a ton of money, too.

This is a great gadget for serious tea drinkers.



http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11120921&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&N=4009931&Mo=26&No=8&Nr=P_CatalogName:BC&cat=28508&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&Sp=C&topnav=

Kinda price, but soooo convenient, and it gives you the hot water at the proper temperature for the type of tea you are drinking. I love mine.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

18. Stevia works for me

Try Stevita as a substitute for soft drinks.
Orange, Lime and Cherry are my favorite flavors in that order.
Zero carbs, safe and will not activate yeast.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

20. I stopped soft drinks mostly, and now just chain drink OJ and water

litterally, it's not unusual for me to drink 2 quarts of OJ and 2-3 Quarts of water in a day.

[hippywife]

22. Too much juice

isn't good for you, either. It's better to eat the fruit than drink the juice because we tend to overdrink the juice which adds more calories than just eating an orange, grapefruit, or apple. The fruit staves off the hunger better, too. Too much juice can also lead to kidney stone development.

I've heard more than one doctor recommend the above.

Be careful with that juice! :hi:

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

24. Yea, I know, the acid can't be good for my esophagus either.

I've been trying to cut back. I have it to 7 quarts a weeks (which is still prolly to much). Part of my problem is that I'm one of those people who need to drink just for the sake of drinking (water doesn't do it for me either, it needs to be flavored).

It wasn't unusual for me to drink 4-5 pops a day, but now I keep it to a diet pop every 2 or 3 days.

A big problem is I pretty much live upstairs, while the fridge is downstairs. This leads me to just taking a quart or so of w/e at a time.

[hippywife]

32. We keep three big bottles

of water chilling in the fridge at all times. That way it's always so cold and refreshing that I want it all the time. I'm actually craving water now. I never thought that would happen!

[Phillycat]

44. You could try vitamin water.

It's pretty good and doesn't have as much sugar as fruit juice.

[barb162]

26. A neighbor lost 25 pounds just getting off colas

[thefool_wa]

27. I had the same experience

Switched from soda (2-3 bottles a day) to tea (black) and lost 10lbs in about a month - it was amazing!

Now I drink like 2 bottles a week if any and my weight stays pretty much the same all year (there have been other dietary modifications to make that true - but the first step was soda)

Good on you for eliminating sweetened carbolic acid from your diet!!

:yourock:

[alfredo]

33. Recognizing real hunger as opposed to some

emotional trigger is what I am working on. The hunger vs thirst thing seems to have worked for me too. A glass of water works wonders.

[thefool_wa]

35. yes it does

I've never been an emotional eater, so I don't fight that trigger.

I used to be a boredom eater - but working in a call center and not wanting to end up with "call center booty" broke me of that.

"Call center booty" is what broke my soda habit as well.

[alfredo]

37. My eating habits came from cycling. You had to eat

constantly. that carried over to my mail carrier days. The supervisor would remark that I was always eating four times by the time I got off work. I would eat two meals at night.

When I got injured and couldn't work anymore, I gained 15 lbs.


Now I do the: Eat breakfast as a king, lunch as a prince and supper as a serf. Not sure if it is good policy but it seems to work for me. I just try not to snack.

[thefool_wa]

38. I signed up for a Gym years ago

And the most effective thing I took from them was my time with their nutritionist. She really taught me a number of tricks for weight maintenance, loosing weight, and eating to a workout regimen.

Afterwords I lost 30 lbs and have stayed w/i 10 lbs of the same weight for 7 years now.

[alfredo]

39. Wish I had the money for such things. I'm on disability so

I have to do it myself.

[thefool_wa]

47. we did at the time

I went for a whole 6 months and have not gone back - like i said the only beneficial thing I got out of the experience was the nutrition counseling.

[alfredo]

50. I never had a problem with weight or conditioning until now.

I can't run anymore, or lift weights. There's not much I can do at a gym even if I had the money. Walking is about it for me.

A nutritionist would be good, especially for my wife. She got her eating habits from her years as a gymnast. She's slender, but I worry about her diet.

[thefool_wa]

51. Check at Gold's Gym

That's where we went and they had programs for all kinds of different people and they all included trainer and nutritionist time. The cost was high for the package we had, but they had lower cost programs.

[alfredo]

52. Maybe I can get my insurance to pay for it. Of course my

doctor would have to feel it would be worth it. He thinks water aerobics might be best for me.

[Connonym]

48. LOL, I read call center booty

and my immediate thought was people calling the call center to be sexually inappropriate. I really need to get my mind out of the gutter.

[YDogg]

34. soft drinks are the devil

i stopped them cold turkey about two yrs ago, and haven't looked back. lost about ten pounds at first over that period, and more recently with a non-junk food diet, have continued to lose weight. exercise level has remained constant, but with better weather, will increase.

[deadparrot]

40. Yep.

I'm not overweight, but I stopped drinking non-diet drinks a couple years ago, and immediately dropped weight. Nowadays, I usually stick to water (with or without Crystal Light). If I do have soda, it's calorie-free, like Fresca or Sprite Zero. :hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. Hmm, I already don't drink soft drinks

:-(

[KatyaR]

42. Because of our over 100-degree weather here last summer,

a group of us started drinking decaffineated apricot tea. It was the only thing that I could drink that cooled me off, and I was used to drinking sodas all day long every day. I finally got to the point where I didn't want any soda at all (although I still drink a Sprite now and then when my stomach's messed up). I dropped over 10 pounds and have kept it off, and now I don't even think about drinking anything but tea. People are amazed when they find out my secret.

Congratulations, and think of the money you're saving!

[alfredo]

43. the sugar in cola heated me up. I don't drink alcohol in

the summer for the same reason.

It would be ninety five out and I would be OK, the beer drinkers were suffering. Alcohol messes up your ability to handle heat for days after your last drink.

[KatyaR]

55. Yeah, I don't like to drink alcohol when it's that hot, either, but

water just doesn't do it for me--it can actually make me sick to my stomach if I drink a lot of it. This tea does the trick, and it's helped me kick most of my caffeine habit, too. Right now I have a couple of cups of coffee in the morning, and that's it for the caffeine. It's made a big difference in how I feel and sleep at night.

[alfredo]

56. There's so many good teas out there. Try Genmai cha.

It is roasted rice and black tea. It's quite good. You can find it at Japanese groceries. Sen Cha is the green tea I drink.

[BluePatriot]

45. Oddly enough

this is happening to me from stopping drinking DIET beverages and sodas and just water/green tea. It's pretty cool.

[NewWaveChick1981]

46. I stopped drinking diet soft drinks two years ago and saw about a 5-lb. loss just from that.

I stopped drinking regular soft drinks over ten years ago and just drank diet drinks, but dropping them entirely did me a world of good. I was hugely addicted to Diet Coke, but now, I drink water all day and coffee first thing in the morning. I usually drink hot tea in the evenings, primarily green tea.

I feel a lot better since giving up soft drinks too. :D

[alfredo]

57. A few months ago they came out and said that

diet colas don't work and may make you gain weight.

[Left Is Write]

58. It's true. Taking in lots of artificial sweeteners can actually make you crave sugar -

You are setting your body up to expect sugar, which in turn can increase your appetite and sugar cravings and make you eat more than you might have otherwise.

My husband drinks no pop whatsoever, and I limit myself to 2 cans of diet Pepsi per week. We drink a lot of plain water.

[alfredo]

60. On a summer day carrying mail I would drink about a gallon

of water. My shirt would be soaking wet. The other carriers would remark on the sweat and I would tell them that I am not allowing myself to dehydrate. I only remember one time where I suffered from the heat and had to seek shade. The guys who drank alcohol and soda didn't seem to handle the heat as well as us plain water drinkers.

[VOX]

53. It's sad, but even good old orange juice has a ton of sugar in it...

High-sugared beverages are just not good for the weight, period. I cut out my morning orange juice and lost 5 lbs. in a couple of weeks.

If you just drink bottled water for awhile, it's hard to go back to sodas -- they taste like *syrup*. :puke:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

54. I lost 30 pounds by cutting out all sugar.

I'm keeping it off...and want to lose more, but I'm not motivated.
Duckie

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

59. I lost 110lbs

By watching Rocky 1 and 2 in the same day. Well that's what got me motivated. It was an emotionally provacative movie about going the distance, it just pysched me up. Needless to say I started excersizing the next day, and dropped my weight in about 8 months. I hover right now at about 15-18%BF as a 6'3 male, 210lbs. Recently I got back in the groove and decided I should just finish up and get the whole 6 packs thing, how hard can it honestly be, just need to continue eating lean, frequently, and excersize.

Wish I had some before and after photos. The secret to losing weight and having a respectable body is all in body composition. Having a muscular frame acts as a buffer when you choose to over indulge yourself, your metabolism just absorbs it and moves on.

But yea, simple sugar is something that should be avoided, unless of course your doing something very physical. It's converted to blood glycogen very very quickly, and if not converted to mechanical energy in a short period of time your body stores it instead. That's why gatorade has sugar in it actually. If your playing any sport intensively for a while getting that sugar into your body will improve your performance. However if your goal is weightless rather than performance, avoid those simpe sugars. grains, whole wheat, oats, etc are your friends.

[Scout]

62. when I quit soft drinks, i just stopped gaining.

if I want to actually lose, i have to exercise. cutting calories alone does nothing for me.

[youthere]

63. I would get occasional bouts of acid reflux (not often enough to be "chronic")..

just enough to be really miserable when it happened. Soon as I stopped drinking diet soda the reflux stopped. I used to like to have a soda occasionally in the evening, and those were always the nights I had the problems, so now I don't drink any diet soda EVER (I can't have regular-diabetes), and I've also noticed that my appetite has shrunk as well.
It's really made me distrustful of artificial sweeteners.

[alfredo]

64. They've scared me from day one.

I still use sugar, but I watch it. I eat very little processed food, and that eliminates a lot of sugar and a lot of salt.

[Skittles]

65. I never drank sugary drinks

I always knew they were empty calories

[Submariner]

66. I am a recovering Pepsi-holic

It was hard to put down that industrial strength Pepsi cuz it tasted so good, but I switched to diet-Pepsi with a twist of fresh lemon to kill that artificial after-taste and kick the full strength stuff. Dropped 14 lbs in a month. I went from a 6-pack of cans a day to maybe 1 or 2 a month just as a treat.