I have a confession to make: I love Diet Coke. I find it tastes great and is extremely refreshing. In fact, so much so that for a while I only drank Diet Coke and I drink a lot so I was consuming more than 12 cans per day.

Unfortunately, Diet Coke and regular Coke both have phosphoric acid which leeches calcium from your bones and prevents calcium absorption. As I am also largely lactose intolerant and have low calcium intake to begin with, my doctors detected early signs of osteoporosis. As a result, I decided to completely stop drinking Coke and add calcium supplements to my diet.

While I was at it, I also completely cut all sugar substitutes (such as aspartame) and caffeine from my diet. Given how long aspartame has been around, I doubt it has negative health implications even if one drinks 24 cans of diet soda per day. However, recent studies suggest that sugar intake helps regulate the feeling of satiety and people taking sugar substitutes have a tendency to overeat.

With regards to caffeine, I have extremely high energy to begin with and don’t really need it, besides I don’t like the taste of coffee.

It’s been a week and so far so good. We’ll see how it goes!

  • Good luck to you! 🙂
    I’ve tried ridding myself of Coke and coffee at least a couple of times, always with failure as the result, however I have half a victory now: for the last couple of months, I only drink Coke during the weekends, and I only drink coffee at work. Not perfect, but better than massive amounts all the time.

    …although I’ve been told to not drink “Coke Zero” or any of those types of drinks, apparently the sugar substitute can also affect your memory – I’d rather become fat and diabetic than an alzheimers case at 35..

    Reply

  • Well, I tried and failed before, but this time I mean it.

    I have (barely) resisted temptation so far and I would like to believe it only gets easier.

    We’ll see!

    Reply

  • Good luck with that Fabrice. You should make sure you are replacing the caffeine with something healthier. The body really struggles to adjust when you simply take something away, especially that amount of caffeine.

    I’d recommend getting yourself a juicer and a blender and making yourself a fresh juice or smoothie whenever you feel you need a kick of energy. And freshly squeezed juices are in a totally different league than anything you will find in a bottle (pasturised).

    I can give you some excellent recipes if you want.
    Another useful tip I find works is limiting big changes like this to 30 days.

    Tell yourself you’re going to stick with it for at least 30 days and then re-asses the situation after that time. It’s much easier for the brain to handle, give you time to develop new habits and also gets you through the physical detox period you will have if you quit caffeine (or any stimulant) cold.

    You may well get head aches, dehydration, need to pee a lot and sleep disruption as your body purges all caffeine stores from your system. (This doesn’t happen right away, so don’t be shocked when it hits, it’s the main cause of people reverting to old habits) Good thing is, it only last a few days to a week and then you’ll have reached a new level of health.

    Reply

  • Damn…ALOT of caffiene. And whether you think its effecting you or not I suspect it is. Any headaches yet? … An unsolicited suggestion / recipe = Jasmine Tea ( most of a drinking glass ) + Sunny Delight ( 1 dollup ) + Cranberry Juice ( 1 dollup )…….you’ll be shocked how good it tastes. My friend who originated it calls it “adult coolaid”. In addition its the only use for sunny delight I have ever found. SIDENOTE: BTW: the phosphoric acid:….coke distributers use it as a cleaner of various sorts. I have it on good authority that its a great engine block cleaner. Really cuts through the greasy grime. Also shines metal up pretty good. Also…a friend took a tooth and placed it in a can of coke in the engineering lab at Honeywell. The tooth was dissolved in 2 days flat.

    Reply

  • I stopped to drink Coke and now every day in the morning I spend 10-30 minutes to make a fresh juice for me and my family. Most common and easy to do is a orange juice, I also use grapefruit along or mixed in blender with papaya or mango – try it! (they have a lot of calcium too).
    Other my preferred juice are with: carrot, apple, banana etc.. I never add sugar to them, and prefer to drink them just after make.

    We also trying to replace sugar with honey, it works well.

    Reply