Rehab

Today at lunch I enjoyed an ice old Coca-Cola. It was the first dark soda I've had in...weeks. I'm not sure exactly quite how long it's been. But it's been weeks. And that's an eternity in some ways.

I'm quite certain that a couple of months ago, I was the worlds biggest diet coke addict. I was obsessed. All I drank was diet coke. If I wasn't drinking diet coke I was thinking about diet. I was thinking about how badly unwanted one. About how delicious and bubbly and refreshing an ice cold diet coke was. I would think about the snapping of the can as it opened, freeing the fizzy bubbles inside.

I rarely left my house without stopping by McDonalds for a large diet coke. There was nothing better than an ice cold diet coke straight from the tap at Mickey D's. NOTHING.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in-between, I lived off of DC, and it was my primary source for hydration.


One day I noticed something circling Facebook about the dangers of aspartame and..dun, dun, DUN, DIET COKE. I believe beads of sweat instantly formed on my brow. I snopes'd it. FALSE. Bam. HA! In your face Facebook! My sister sent it to me first, BAM I sent her a link to the snopes article. Then my best friend sent it to me. BAM, snopes link. But then she emailed me something back. Actual complaints to the FDA. I read it, turned it over in my head, argued a bit, and put it aside.

Then one day I decided to google about the side effects of aspartame. NOT what health gurus and fanatics thought, but you know, real stuff. Stuff that actual people were experiencing.

The finding was, to be honest, horrifying.

I found list upon list of really scary effects that aspartame was having on the health of people like me. Diet coke lovers and addicts.

Health problems that have been plaguing me for over a year, and problems that had really built to a head in the past six months.

Here is a link to the article that really lead me to kicking my addiction:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/29349-symptoms-aspartame-poisoning/

I didn't stop cold turkey. I knew if I tried I would probably go batshit crazy and I really don't need anymore help being crazier than I already am. I knew I was living life hopped up on caffeine and that I would have to kick the caffeine before I kicked the aspartame. I slowly weaned myself off of the regular diet coke and onto caffeine free diet coke, little by little, drink my drink. I also started introducing NON soda options. Water, and 100% fruit nice mainly. Once I was completely off of the caffeine I was down to only two caffeine free diet cokes a day. So then I just stopped. That was weeks ago.

Sometimes I wish I had documented the day. But I didn't. I'm okay with just "weeks".

For a while I was ROCKING it with water, drinking well over the recommended amount. I've recently begin drinking tea, instead of juice also. I'm really hoping to see not only a change in my health but also a change in my waist. lol

I guess only time will tell!

Sometimes I sit and ask myself, do I ever really WANT a diet coke anymore? The drink that at one time I was literally certain I couldn't live without, and I can honestly say I haven't had one craving.

Until today.

There's just something about a nice cold cola with some yummy Mexican food. So I kinda/sorta caved. BUT I skipped the aspartame and went for different chemicals. Regular coca-cola.

I haven't jumped off the wagon, nor have I been caught in a downslide. It's actually pretty freaking amazing to me and almost funny.

To think how dependent and in love with a stupid DRINK I was. Just dumb.

I've already seen a difference in a few things. I want to give it a full 60 days {give or take, I will just have to guess on when that will be} before I say that I believe it was the Diet Coke/aspartame causing them or not. Like I said, only time will tell!

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