Detox

[_gerald]

Past month or so I've dropped about 25 pounds. Go me!

One thing that is creeping into the back of my mind is my widely known Diet Coke addiction.

As many of you know, I drink somewhere between 4 and 5 liters a day.I've looked at results of "studies" on Diet drinks and weight. There seems to be a correlation but causation seems to be undetermined

Comments

[cholma]

At home, I mostly just drink Diet Dew, with a bottle or two of water at work. If I'm at restaurant, then it's usually Rootbeer or regular Dew. (For example, I was drinking regular Dew and Rootbeer the whole time I was in Ohio)

My understanding is that it take caffeine about 12 hours to leave your system, so I usually drink only water for 16-24 hours prior to a doctor's appointment. I don't know about what else the chemicals might be doing, but if you're serious, then I would suggest you start alternating between Diet Coke and water. Can of DC, bottle of H20, can of DC, etc.

If you go cold turkey, and you're susceptible to feeling crappy, then be prepared to having to endure it for 2 weeks or so. That's the usual "detox" period for something like this. Drink lots of water and/or something like Gatorade to give your body what it needs to fight.

[mrsanimal]

With the amount of coke you drink - you will go through a VERY hard caffeine crash if you try to quit cold turkey, which will then make you quit your effort entirely. I'm not certain on the medial effects of diet vs regular (other than the caloric content) but almost anything in moderation is ok. I was told to drink diet rather than regular by all my docs

[mythos_9]

What both Cholma and MrsA said are correct. You need to cut down, I think that much is certain, but I never EVER say to cut something out entirely. That's where bone crushing cravings come in. You cut out something and guess what you're going to crave? Yeah. Plus, the caffeine tremens will probably smack you around if you go cold Thanksgiving-fowl.

SO...cut back some. Find out something else that you like to drink instead that doesn't have caffeine. Cholma has root beer, though Barq's has caffeine, so that kinda defeats the purpose, but eh. And it's not really the Coke you're trying to knock out, it's the drug IN the Coke. Try to keep that in mind whatever you do. Don't demonize something you like.

Ween is a good word. I say go with it. :)

[cholma]

Heh. The rootbeer is because most places don't have Dew, and ones that do don't mix it right, so it sucks. (and I'm not fond of Coke/Pepsi) I was just illustrating that I also drink a lot of soda. (looking back, that whole first paragraph in my post could be deleted as off-topic/not helpful.)

Water is my only alternate to soda. The funny thing is, I switched to Diet Dew from Mt Dew because I drink so much of it, I figured I would do my teeth a favor and cut out all that sugar. The calories never even came into play (although I recognize now that cutting out those calories was a good thing)

[barnabas_truman]

I highly recommend water. It's delicious!

[gwalla]

I understand that grapefruit juice is good for scrubbing residual caffeine out of your system.