How I Switched To Sugar Free Soda

I struggled with drinking too much soda for years. From my teenage years through my twenties, I would drink 4 to 5, sometimes 6 or even 7 a day. I never thought twice about it back then, it just seemed normal to me. Most of my friends and family drank soda with most meals.

When I got into my twenties and started paying more attention to my diet, I started cutting back. There were times I would cut back to 2 or 3 sodas a day, and times I would drink more. At that time I was still drinking regular soda.

About 3 years ago, I committed to switching to zero sugar sodas. Despite all the fear-mongering about diet sodas being “worse for you.” I’ll get into that after my story.

I had tried to quit soda cold turkey, and it never worked for me. I might last a week or two weeks before I would have one. And I would think to myself, “I’ve gone two weeks without one, one won’t hurt”. Which is logical reasoning, except one would turn into two the next day, and three the day after that, and I was right back into the cycle.

So when I committed to switch to zero sugar sodas, I did it differently.

I hated the taste of most diet sodas, but I could handle the zero sugar sodas. To me they tasted fine, there was just an aftertaste. Here I will point out that everyone is different, maybe you like the “zero sugar” ones better or maybe you like the “diet” ones better. This method will work for either.

I started by alternating my zero sugar and regular sodas. I would have a couple of each everyday. After about a month, I started exclusively drinking the zero sugar ones. Even though for the first couple weeks it didn’t taste as good, I stuck with it. I had committed. After time, they tasted better and better to me. Now, I can’t even drink a regular soda.

One thing I did that helped me a lot, was instead of starting with a zero sugar version of my favorite soda, I started with other sodas. When I would drink regular soda, that’s when I would drink my favorite.

With time I started drinking the zero sugar version of my favorite, and by then it tasted great.

Is Sugar Free Better?

You may have heard conflicting information on sugar free sodas and artificial sweeteners. Some people out there will even say it’s worse for you, and that artificial sweeteners cause cancer.

Switching from regular to sugar free can be beneficial. That’s because you would be cutting out that much added sugar from your diet. You would be consuming fewer calories.

Just like anything else, artificial sweeteners are safe in moderation. The only research that showed a link in artificial sweeteners and cancer was such a high dose that it would be near impossible to drink that much.

The World Health Organization has it as a possible carcinogen, and they follow up by saying it’s safe to consume up to 40m/kg of bodyweight per day. Which would be around 10-15 cans per day depending on your size.

The risk of chronic disease from over-consuming added sugars is something else to think about.

So, if you aren’t drinking any soda already, you might as well keep that up. If you’re drinking regular soda, you could improve your diet by switching to sugar free, or just by limiting the amount you drink to 1-2 per day.

If you want some help switching to zero sugar soda or if you want help cutting back on soda, sign up for a free 15 minute call with me below:

Stay on track this weekend!

See you next week!