I gave up soda awhile. My best advice is keep at it. I drink plain ice water with all my meals. In my humble opinion water is the safest drink out there.

In my opinion, I love soda and will never give it up, but I do limit it.
I do 4 to 8 oz of reg coke a cola a day. This works for me. I am 63 and have been drinking soda all my life. I do not like diet anything and would rather drink water.
Just my opinion, I am working on portion control and do not exclude anything I want, but the portion size is limited, because I would like to drop 30 lbs this yr.
I am also working on eating small portions every 3 hrs, for some reason this works the best for me.
We all should find what works the best for us. If a person can live w/o soda, would be the best because it is def not a healthy drink.

We gave up soda years ago (except for ginger ale when someone has a cold and sore throat). We did it as a household which is definitely easier than as an individual in a household of soda drinkers. I basically stopped buying it as part of the grocery shopping.

This is what I do with snacking boxed and bagged crap as well. I haven't really eliminated soda but I probably average 1 can a month which I just can't get worried about. If I want something bad enough to drive for a half hour in each direction to get it...fine.

Overtime I want the treats less and less but knowing I can still have them if I'm willing to shift my butt to get them keeps me from feeling deprived.

Hope that helps.

Happy New Year Tucey!

How are you doing with saying good bye to soda?

Diet soda is my demon. I cut back a lot at times then stress kicks my intake again. From research I understand that the sweeteners act just as sugar does on the brain.

Here to listen and support in any way I can.

I gave up caffeine soda cold turkey. Well, it took me about 3 tries at it until I finally got it done. I still have the occasional soda with caffeine in it but nothing like I used to do.

Sadly I am drinking a LOT of root beer now. Water is the best substitute. I drink a LOT of it to combat the need to drink. (The psychological need rather than the thirst driven need.) That works, but I have to have the "right glass" because too many of them seem to give the water a plastic taste.

And don't get too far from a bathroom!

Hugs, you can do this!

Wow, that is really courageous! Good for you. I have found it helpful to notice when I do something, however small, that shows control. So each time you make some healthy choice regarding soda, make sure you give yourself recognition for it. Also, I've run into problems with draconian ideals that are not terribly conducive to staying on track. Make sure you're giving yourself small treats (not necessarily food, but it can be), and just monitor what works and what doesn't. Good luck!

Water is definitely the best choice until you can get past the caffeine/sugar withdrawal. I used to drink a 2 liter or more of soda a day and I was hard but I had to quit. If you drink as much "diet drinks" a day as you did pop you will be right back to soda in a week. you have to mentally stop feeding the addiction and switching to other sweet stuff right away is like trying to quit smoking by replacing your cigs with "lights". It usually takes about a week to get over the cravings, and after that I would try something like sparkling ice water its cheap and fizzy and sweet.

What might help is add up how many calories a day you are drinking in pop, and write it in sharpie on the outside of your water bottle so every time you look at you water and think "I WANT A COKE" you will be reminded why you're doing it. Have you tried the free app myfitnesspal? It really helped me.
Good luck!!