Coke, my old friend

[frogmedic]

Aloha y'all

This is Day 0 for me.  I feel like I need to capitalize "day" for some reason.  Make it all official and what not.

Onto what you've all been waiting for (during that whole first sentence), who I am!  I'm a 38 year old disabled Army vet, female type, living in a bum hick town in the middle of no where USA.  I'm waiting on a double hip replacement from the VA - I was approved last October to have my right hip replaced.  Maybe by this December I'll actually have it done!  

Because of my hips, I went from a very active life to a very sedate one.  My cats adore it, the dog, not so much.  If it weren't for her ball/fetch obsession, I'd never get outside!  With the possibility of having at least one new hip soon, I'd really like to get rid of my fluffy (the weight, not the cats) for good.  The only way to do that is to quit Coke.  There, I said it, it took me 4:32 minutes to write that out.   Hi, my name is Kelly, and I'm a Coke addict.  I could write my very own "Coke glorious Coke..." song and dance routine for Broadway.  

I've been trying to quit Coke for years.  I actually quit smoking cigarettes BEFORE I quit Coke because it was easier!  Coke is my gateway sweet.  "Oh, but Coke tastes so good with ____"  I've even spent the past 2 years trying to make as much of my own food as possible, I'd say 80-85% of my diet was made from scratch.  You know, if you ignore the Coke.   

Coke has whopped me for far too long.  It's time it's gone.  But I don't want it to be *cue sad music and girl sobbing softly in the background*.    

I keep thinking, "this can't be harder than bootcamp", but even at bootcamp, I got to eat what I wanted.  It was everything else that was controlled!  I also keep thinking, "this is going to SUCK" while at the same time laughing with anticipation.  That probably says something about me psychologically, but we won't go there, 'kay?

I have thrown out 2 (okay, 1.5 but it doesn't sound as impressive) bags of stuff out of my kitchen as of today.  Seasoned salt has sugar...really people?  Do you really need to put sugar in with SALT??  Grits?  No, they are corn!  Peanut butter you glorious fiend, goodbye.  Bread, oh bread, how I love thee.  I'm getting all verklempt over ice cream, no fricken ice cream?!?!  At least I get watermelon, that should really help on the lonely nights.

Anyone starting tomorrow?  We can argue with each other when we get all cranky and sugar deprived and whatnot.

[ladyshanny]

Love your writing style!

So with that coke issue. Depending on your level of usage, know that you will probably experience some pretty heavy detox in the first few days. I'm talking headaches, nausea, sweats, disrupted sleep, bad mood/anger/resentment etc. Just be prepared. Coke is SO sugar heavy and so caffeine heavy and so filled with disgusting, hormone altering, body altering chemicals that it is going to take a while for your body to get used to life without it. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and power-drink diet pepsi. Thinking back on that it makes me want to gag. Know that there is life on the other side of that addiction (former smoker also). You can come out the other side and it's nice over here!

During your transition off of it, drink a boatload of water and then add some extra water to that. Topped with water and some frozen water. Maybe some fizzy water if you need the bubbles to get over the hump of the addiction.  That caffeine/sugar withdrawal is going to be rough.

Remind yourself that this product was engineered to hook you and that you are what the manufacturer refers to as a "super user" and that they specifically target and research people like yourself in order to increase your consumption and deepen your addiction. Disgusting! You do not need these people, they don't care about you, they want your money and your health be damned. Every minute that you suffer with a headache or nausea or whatever ill feeling you might have while you detox from it, remember that those [insert bad word] GAVE you that. They gave that awful feeling to you because they know good g'damn well what is in the crap they schill and they Do Not Care.

You can come here and yell and scream and shout and I'll take whatever you've got. Be mad, upset, resentful or sickened. It's all good. I am SO here for you! You can do this! 157%, YOU can do THIS! 

 

[SugarcubeOD]

I"m loving this thread and love you @ladyshanny a little more today

I also used to be a huge Coke Zero addict and a Crystal Light Nestea Whateverthatgarbageis addict... It effing suuuuuucks to stop but it's so much better... I never used to drink clear water... it was coke zero or nestea, 100% of the time, including like my sister, in the middle of the night... i'd wake up and drink a 1L nalgene bottle of crystal light... ONE LITRE!

You will grow to love water.. you will feel virtuous in kicking a habit that a bunch of money hungry a-holes put on you and helped you keep!  Basically everything that ladyshanny said but not as poetic!

I'm here for you too!

[frogmedic]

No, see....no.  No one said just water.  I got a bunch of decaffeinated/caffeine-free teas.  I dislike water!  At basic, we could only drink water or this oddly salty fruit drink called "Victory juice".  For flavor, I would put a few Ricola's in my canteen and let them sit for a few hours to give my water flavor!  I even avoided getting any carbonated water because of the whole, "breaking habits" thing and the thing I love the MOST about Coke is the carbonation.  The way the first drink from an ice cold can rips your tastes buds off as it slides down your throat.....yeeeaaahhhh that's the stuff!  It's the carbonation that always makes me come crying (while skipping) back.  So no carbonated stuff for me.

I just called my mom and was saying how difficult I think it's going to be and her wonderfully supportive reply was, "if it's hard, just quit."  She doesn't, "believe in fad diets."  I wonder if I can teach my dog to say, "good job"?  Youtube is full of videos of dogs saying various things, it's not out of the realm of possibility.  I should probably wait until after the evil sugar demons have been exercised from my body though, for her sake.

Thankfully, if I feel all that horrible, I can stay in bed.  I don't have to drag my butt to work or after ankle biters.  I don't have any where to go or anything to do, no one to have over nor anyone to visit, no friends nor family live here.  This is the best time for me to do it!  No distractions   In a few years, once I have both my new hips (hopefully sooner but it's the VA we're talking about), I'll be back to an active life.  I want to have "food freedom" because I have so much life I need to catch up on!  I've been on the sidelines for about 5 years now, I have a lot of life to make up for!  

 

[kirkor]

14 hours ago, frogmedic said:

and the thing I love the MOST about Coke is the carbonation

Something to consider:

"Carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages induces ghrelin release and increased food consumption in male rats: Implications on the onset of obesity."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28228348

 

[ladyshanny]

I won't badger you anymore about this, @frogmedic, but I just wanted to say, give yourself room to grow. Taking an absolute stance on something like plain water "Gross, no, no way, never, gag" doesn't give you any room at all to change. What we think is most often our reality. So ya, maybe you really dislike plain water right now but give yourself room to feel differently down the road. Maybe that will never happen, but maybe it will.  

We have some suggestions that people trying to get on water can do to help:

put fruit slices in a pitcher of water in the fridge and let it infuse (apples, strawberries, cukes, lemons, limes etc)
try it super icy cold or room temperature or, for some, even warm
try it out of different drinking vessels, china, glass, plastic, metal
use a straw
use a bite valve
put a splash of compliant juice into your water for flavour

 

[NoneOtherThanAmy]

58 minutes ago, kirkor said:

Something to consider:

"Carbon dioxide in carbonated beverages induces ghrelin release and increased food consumption in male rats: Implications on the onset of obesity."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28228348

 

This is so interesting. I bought some La Croix  sparkling water recently and notice that every time I drink one I want to start snacking. I thought it was because the natural flavors were bringing up a flavor that was linked to artificial sweetener in my brain. I wonder if it's the carbonation instead? Thanks for sharing!

@frogmedic I've been a long-time soda and caffeine addict as well. I have managed to quit both things during my Whole30, so I know you can do it too! Best of luck to you.

[MeadowLily]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/15/fizzy-water-could-cause-obesity-encouraging-eat/

 

  Choices and consequences. What we do most of the time matters more than some of the times. LaCroix/Pellegrino some of the times is not going to do what sugary or artificially sweetened energy drinks or soda pops do all of the time.