Kicking the Habit

I wanted to post something a little different today in honor of a major milestone. Yesterday, Tuesday, April 15 marked two months without Diet Coke. That means not a sip, not sniff and certainly not a gulp of the lovely liquid for 60 days. As you can tell, I still have an affinity for the syrupy, sugar free soda. I am convinced, however, that my decision to kick the habit was a good one.

Since I quit, I've had many people ask me if I've noticed a difference. My answer isn't exactly encouraging. Honestly, I've noticed one significant difference, and it's not exactly fit for public discussion. We'll just say if I went to the doctor today a urine test would appear more clear than yellow. Gross, but it's truly the only noticeable difference. I never had headache's (I'm still drinking coffee for my caffeine fix), I never went into hysterics.. nothing. I still crave the drink when I hear someone else pop open a can or twist open a cap, but my will power to conquere my diet coke addiction has overcome any desire to succumb to these cravings.

Although I may not have offered any noticable changes since I've quit, I decided to do a little online research about what kind of havoc diet coke could have wreaked on my system. (Note: All research was done from online newspaper articles. I do not guarantee that any of this is true, but I did try to find more than two sources for much of this information.)

The major concern with Diet Coke is the chemical that artificially sweetens it. That chemical, called aspartame, has been shown by doctors and scientists to cause head aches, encourage weight gain (I'll go into this one further) and in large doses has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats. Many studies though have shown that lab tests on rats don't exactly translate into how humans will react to a substance. In my diet coke drinking hayday I could throw back between 3-5 cans a day. In recent years, I had cut down to just two a day. I'm not sure what constitutes for large doses of aspartame, but I think 5 cans a day could probably be called excessive.

I thought the weight gain I mentioned above to be pretty interesting, but I don't know how much I buy into it. It kind of goes along the lines with The Zone's idea of increasing glycogen and how sugar stimulizes the body. Sweet foods cause a reaction in the body called a "salient orosensory stimulus." That sends the body a message to prepare to take in a lot of calories. The body alerts its ingestive and digestive systems and tells them to get ready for action. When the sweetness is artificially created (as in Diet Coke) and is not followed by calories the system gets confused, which interfers with the body's ability to intake calories when they ARE real.

I don't know if any of this stuff has been proven for real, so don't make any life changing decisions based on this. I just thought it was an interesting idea.

My success in kicking the Diet Coke habit has led me to the next logical step. If I can give up one addiction why can't I give up another? Sweets is next on my list. I'm not sure if giving up sugar, chocolate and candy is really a feasable life plan, but I certainly can reduce my intake.

I started yesterday, and today was the first true test of my not-so-iron will.. There was a free breakfast at my office. I was thinking there would be some fruit there that I could grab and maybe some eggs. Unfortunately, when I arrived I realized that "breakfast" actually entailed about 12 dozen boxes of donuts from Dunkin' Donuts! Ahhhhh... I was proud of myself. I remained calm and stood a safe distance from the sweet, pieces of morning glee. After leaving, I went to the kitchen and prepared my little egg omelet that I bring to work with me.

Yay to self control.. I only hope it lasts.

Also, in my research I found this crazy girl who actually has a blog about how much she loves diet soda.. strange.. but interesting.
http://www.ilovedietsoda.com/labels/Diet%20Coke.html