this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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I switched to sparkling water. Satisfies the "cold fizzy thing" itch without extra sugar. Though, apparently finding plain seltzer is hard in some parts.
Would a sodastream type solution satisfy your needs? Things like that have gotten super cheap. My dad also just uses unsweetened drink flavoring in his like bubly. Can also use natural flavours instead of buying artificial ones. Concentrated lemon juice is easy enough to find, I'm sure other concentrated flavours are possible to find or make too. But yeah, by default it just makes carbonated water, adding flavour or sweetening it is an optional second step.
Devices that carbonate water have been around for decades, the upside of the new ones is just that they hit a critical mass in enough markets now that the co2 cartridge replacements are everywhere and cheap now. I live in a small town of 2000 people up in Canada, and we have a sodastream canister exchange program in our local hardware store, lol. And a canister is 20$cad and lasts me about 100 drinks, the water I use is filtered tap water, so the price there is pretty negligible per drink. Totals up to about 25 cents per drink. The price of the machine itself was 80$cad, so if I only add that to the first batch, those first hundred liters were more like a dollar each. Pretty easy to swallow. Though it's carbonated, so best to sip anyway.
I'm pretty fond of Hal's. They even have a fruit punch flavor that transports me to my childhood, ha.
I used to drink a shitload of soda.
Then after college I was living at home with my folks, two hours away from my fiancee. I had nothing better to do so I decided to focus on my health. Took 6 months, did a lot of p90x, went almost entirely cold turkey on processed foods, added sugars, and alcohol.
I ended up losing over 60lbs, almost all of which I have gained back for various reasons. But one thing that stuck is I cannot handle non-diet soda anymore. It makes me feel physically sick to drink more than a couple ounces. I will occasionally drink a diet soda, but even those are few and far between.
It's like I rewired something inside of me and I just can't deal with those sugar bombs anymore. I'm sure part of it may also just be me getting older.
Anyway the point of the story is, there is hope! It takes some willpower, but if I could do it, you can too!
You can do it!
Getting soda by the can really helps me- It’s hard not to finish whatever I open and at least the can is an ok size for the day. A bit more expensive per volume and a bit worse for the environment, but at least it’s one part of my diet under control