2007-01-26 18:55:20
Quitting Soda: How Education Will Help you Finally Quit
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People used to always laugh at me when I said that I was addicted to Coke slurpees. I used to drink two, maybe three large Coke slurpees every day. It was tough to quit, but when I started researching exactly what is in Coke and how much harm it was doing to my body, it was very easy to quit.
I used to always say to people, you laugh at me for drinking that much soda, but if you don't have your cup of coffee in the morning with a bunch of sugar, you can't function. We were addicted to the same things; caffeine and sugar. However, being addicted to coffee is somehow more "adult-like" and accepted by society. Probably Starbuck's influence!
Quitting was tough for me, but then I looked into what constitutes a can of Coke, and I was amazed at what I saw.
First off, there are fifty grams of sugar inside one can of Coke. According to an article that I read online, if you added one can of Coke to the typical American's diet, they would gain fifteen pounds per year. Obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.
In addition to the obvious downsides of the weight gain, chronic consumers of Cola can look forward to Coke corroding their teeth and reducing their bone density. So now not only could you go blind from Type 2 Diabetes, but you could be looking forward to a brittle life full of bone fractures and rotting teeth.
As an experiment, someone dropped a broken teeth into a can of Coke, and within ten days it had completely dissolved. In addition, due to the acids inside of Coke, it can also be used to remove rust or loosen a rusty bolt. Not something that I really want to be putting inside of my body.
In addition, Coke messes with your body. The caffeine will keep you awake temporarily, putting you in an euphoric state. But after an hour or two, the caffeine and sugar rush will wear off, and you will crash. This is where the cycle of drinking Coke's kicks in, as you open the fridge and grab another Coke in order to bring that feeling back and feel awake.
As someone who consumed probably two liters of Coke every day for probably ten years, I often wondered why I gained weight so easily. After doing a bit of research, I had to laugh. Basically, I was consuming three cans of Coke per day, which meant that it would add 45 pounds to my body every year. No wonder I was running and no losing any weight!
Kicking the habit of drinking soda is definitely tough to do, but after 3-4 days of no soda, you will find that you have pretty much kicked the habit. Try to coincide quitting drinking sodas with some time off of work, because it can be very hard to quit caffeine and sugar in the middle of a work week. Just go and do it, you will feel so much better about your energy levels will be higher than you ever had drinking pop.
Filed under: Health + Fitness | Motivational
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COMMENTS
Comment by MelanieJones on January 07, 2010 @ 11:33 pm
I made a new year's resolution that this will be my year without soda. The thought of what I have done to my health after drinking this stuff for 25 years...I just want to be done.
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