If you are anything like I once was, you may have a terrible (health wise) and expensive soda habit. I tried for years to break it and failed miserably each time. Then about 5 years ago, I came up with a method that worked, and eventually cut my $1000 a year soda habit down to $0.
My main problem was that when I tried to quit drinking soda, I always felt deprived. The deprivation had me always thinking about it and at some point I would cave in and start drinking soda again. I had to come up with a way so I didn't feel deprived.
My simple solution was to say I could drink as much soda as I wanted, but I had to drink a full glass of water before I could. The result was that I didn't feel deprived of my soda since I could have as many as I wanted, but drinking a full glass of water before each one made it so I didn't drink nearly as many each day.
After a month, I made the rule that I had to drink 2 glasses of water before drinking a soda, and that eventually increased to 4 glasses of water over time until I was in the habit of drinking water instead of soda. I'm not sure it that will work for you, but it is certainly a set of baby steps that are worth a try if you are looking for a way to break this type of habit.
2 comments:
I'm not trying to quit diet soda because of the expense but because of what I realize it's doing to my teeth. Ditto the aspertame and sugar, I want to cut way down and/or quit those also. I seldom buy name brand anything, so I can't claim pop is costing me a fortune. I'm just tired of thinking I have to haul a can of pop with me. Your idea is worth a try. What I'm doing carrying my mug with me wherever I go and using different varieties of tea bags or one of those individual flavored instant teas, makes a decent weak drink if you're tired of plain water and works well in fast food restaurants. Or just order water at the nicer places and surreptitiously make your own (yeah, I know it's tacky).
What a great tip! I will try this. I don't like the way water tastes but I know it's better (and cheaper!)for your health and wallet. I read an article on "Dollar Stretcher" that claimed that drinking soda is like rinsing your teeth in an acid bath because soda has citric acid in it. That was enough to give me pause without even considering the financial cost.
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