TRYING To Quit Drinking soda...what Do You Drink Instead?

I drank diet coke like it was water until early last month. Another mom on her was trying to quit smoking and I told her I'd quit soda with her. They are both bad for you, so why not? I haven't had one sip since that morning.

I drink so much water in a day it's ridiculous. Every now and then I will have a latte, but mostly water. Sometimes I'll drink hot tea too. I don't like sweetened drinks, so I stick to just water. Sometimes I'll have some juice too.

I have become as equally addicted to ice water as I was to diet coke. I love the way I feel and my skin looks a lot better too.

You can do this!!

I drink seltzer water. We call it bubble water. That's what my kids thought "soda" was. It has no calories, no sugar and I like it plain or with some lemon or lime wedges in it.

I stopped regularly drinking soda a few months ago. I do allow myself the occasional indulgence of soda. I honestly drink mostly water now. When I get bored of water I throw in tea either iced or hot. I put fruit pieces into water when I'm tired of plain water as well. I thought it would be harder than it is and truthfully it's actually been easier to just sit there with a bottle of water drinking on that throughout the day and I don't feel bad about inhaling all the soda I used to.

Water w/ lemon wedges from our tree. I rarely drink anything else, unless I'm having a cocktail. Why waste the calories? ;) Oh, I've also read that water and lemon speeds up the metabolism ... not sure if that's true.

Flavored sparkling water or sparkling water with a little bit of juice.

I had a terrible Coke (the soda) addiction for years and have been successful by drinking COLD water with a little lemon or lime juice, or iced tea, and when I get antsy and really wanting a soda I drink some of the Walmart brand flavored waters (they're carbonated, so I get "peace" from the fizzy kick, but no sodium/sugar added). They also taste good, but aren't really "addicting" so I don't really drink them all the time. I've had some store brands of water that I didn't like....I do like the Walmart brand though. A lot.
Carbonated stuff might be "out of favor" with some, but to me, what I want in a Coke is that slight burn, the fizziness of it. So these waters do the trick for me when in a crunch. And keep tea or something else in your fridge so you have something to go to. If you "practice", you'll probably surprise yourself and like water once you get used to it. I have.

I love smartwater. I know, it sounds like a gimmick. But I can tell a difference in the way it tastes. I also like the orange Vitamin Water Zero. I can drink the lemonade one and the XXX one, but the orange is my favorite.

Iced Tea for the caffeine.

Water - flavored water.

Crystal Light has the same thing Diet Coke/Pepsi has in it. So it really won't help you too much.

I personally love drinking water and it is essential to weight loss (if that is your concern). I used to drink nothing but Coke when I was a young lass then I moved to the desert and quickly discovered what I had been missing! I needed water! I actually gave up soda completely a decade ago and have not had any since. It was strange at first but you just get used to it. Your tastes will adjust if you just set your mind to drinking the water. Crystal Light has the same synthetic sweetners as soda as well as other artificial ingredients. If you really can't train yourself to plain water I have two healthy recommendations. 1. Tea - so many many kinds of lovely herbal flavored tea and you can experiment in the summer with adding a splash of cranberry juice or slice up some peaches or berries into your tea. I never get bored of these experiments! Get some new flavors and try them. I love to mix green tea with berry zinger and some rasberries. 2. Take a pitcher of filtered water and add a few slices of cucumber, lemon and lime. It is amazing and you will be surprised how great and refreshing it is! I call it "spa water." OK I lied I have a third. 3. lemonade. Slice lemons, sprinkle some stevia and throw in ice water. My kids love it too. and 4. Pellegino with a slice of lime.

I liked soda for the carbonation more than the caffeine. I don't like drinking plain water. So, I started drinking Talking Rain sparkling water. It comes in several flavors. All natural. No sugars of any kind. Helped me kick my soda habit. When I want a hot drink, its either coffee or chai tea :-)

Crystal Light has aspartame -- a chemical you also should be avoiding. Aspartame and Splenda are Excitotoxins and will destroy your brain.
If you can go find 'Hansens fruit stix' it is a flavoring you can add to your water, but it is with stevia. Stevia is a completely safe sweetener. Or add organic lemon juice to your water with stevia - make lemonade.
If you drink these powders with aspartame, you might as well drink pop (diet) because it has the same stuff in it.

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Sparkling unsweetend waters.

They come in lemon, lime , raspberry or orange.

I personally, just like plain sparkling water, with a slice of lemon and lots of crunch ice!

I drink water and coffee. Iced coffee in the summer. You will get used to drinking water.

LaCroix love the lime. Iced tea when out to eat. Water, I need to get back to drinking lemon water - it's quite good for you. Coconut water but I prefer the flavored kinds so pineapple, mango, the plus is less sugar than soda and nothing artificial plus sooo much more hydrating than soda.

Well, I'm a fellow soda-junkie myself, but one thing that I used to take to work and leave at my desk was Mio water flavor. You just squirt some liquid drops into a glass or bottle of water and tastes a lot like kool-aid or crystal light or whatever. But surely this is similar in concept to a diet soda (artificial sweetners!) as would be crystal light and even iced tea if you are drinking it sweetened.

i gave up soda when i got pregnant and never looked back. i love filling up my glass with ice and water, and squeeze lemon. i drink that al day long. of course i have a cup of coffee in the morning otherwise how do i survive all day? but i just drink water.

Good for you! DH and I LOVE Diet Coke, but I started to get alarmed at how often our kids were taking cans of pop without asking permission, and leaving them everywhere. It was becoming more than an every-once-in-awhile treat from them. With the latest studies on heart disease and knowing how bad it can be for growing kids, I decided we would no longer have any in our house.

So. . . DH buys calorie free drink mixes from Walmart. They're OK, but I feel like I'm drinking a lot of other stuff because I'm in the initial habit withdrawal myself and nothing else quite satisfies me. I think flavored carbonated waters like H20, Lacroix, and Mendota Springs are good replacements.

I use water, but I love it!

You might try perriere for bubbles and flavored stevia for sweetness without calories and chemicals. It's quite nice.

I just kicked the coke habit too (wow that sounds horrible haha) and it was rough! It's been like 2 weeks, the first day was crazy rough, I was sweating and really anxious (that sounds bad too) I didn't know what was going on until I looked into caffeine addiction and what sodas do to your body.. I could seriously go through a 6-pack in a day (could not did). The first few days were hard because there isn't a whole lot that replaces soda and that's good for you, we found sprakling ICE, it's made by talking rain and it's AMAZING. There's no sugar, calories OR aspertaime in it and it's a little sweet (but not that fake sweet) and it's carbonated. That helped me out so much, I drink like one a day and I do coffee, tea, and water too. Good luck!

Try MiO. It comes in lots of flavors...sweet tea is my favorite, but they have mango peach, strawberry kiwi (or something like that), blueberry pomegranate, fruit punch (which I think is gross), and they just added a few that actually have caffeine (although those I mentioned have NO caffeine, no sugar, no calories, no fat, etc.)

I buy a gatorade every once in a while (the 32 oz bottle) and reuse the bottle over and over...I actually have two, so one is always full of water in the fridge. Two nice squirts of sweet tea MiO (oh, and WalMart just came up with a generic brand of this that's pretty good and a buck cheaper) into a 32 oz bottle...it tastes JUST LIKE sweet tea!!!

I quit sodas about a month ago and drink teas and water but every now and then I make "spa water". I have several recipes that include things like cucumber slices, orange slices, lemon slices and sometime mint or ginger. It is a nice change to "plain" water.

Water with a touch of lemon juice and a small spot of real sugar. I can't touch artificial sweeteners because they give me migraines, flare up my eczema, and seem to make my Fibromyalgia flare ups worse. Lemon juice in water is good in aiding digestion anyway.

I also just drink a ton of plain ice water.

I love hot teas, especially the green teas. They have different super fruits added to them now too for those who can't take the straight grassy flavor of green tea ;-) but that makes them great for making chilled iced tea. I like Lipton plain decaf green tea and Salada brand. I also love loose leaf green tea but you have to reallly enjoy the grass flavor to drink it loose leaf brewed.

Ooh... and chai tea. Amazing either hot or chilled. My favorite so far is Vanilla Chai teabags from Bigelow brand. I take a 2 quart pitcher and put 2 or 3 teabags into it. Secure them in there so that they don't fall. Add about 1/2 cup to 1 cup granulated sugar (depending on how sweet you like your tea) to the pitcher. Add boiling water to the pitcher but leave about two to three inches from the top of the pitcher. Let the tea steep until the water is simply warm if you plan to drink it chilled, otherwise you can add milk to it to "top off" the pitcher. Stir and chill. Or drink it without milk. It's also great if you make it in individual mugs exactly like this and drink it piping hot.

My autistic daughter loves chai tea hot or cold. It's one of our favorite comfort drinks throughout the year.

What's great about chai is that it's a blend of many different types of tea including green tea and black tea and many different types of spices. My daughter drinks it because she can pick out the ginger from it, and ginger is one of her favorite flavors. She thinks it tastes like a creamy gingerbread cookie if I make it with her lactose-free milk.

my husband and i just gave up soda last month. we drink water, crystal light, or mio.

I love iced tea too, but when I want the fizz from soda I mix some fruit juice (I like grape or cranberry) with club soda and a squeeze of lime. You can add more or less juice to your taste.

I do a lot of herbal ice teas. Just stick a few teabags in a pitcher of room temperature water for about 15 or 20 minutes. Right now we have blueberry and lemon zinger downstairs. My husband was amazed by the blueberry, which he swears tastes like it has sweetener in it (it doesn't). No calories and delicious. I also put fruit or mint in water to flavor it, but the ice tea lasts longer.

Ice Tea...mango flavored and un-sweet! I don't like a lot of drinks that are sugar sweet.
Water
One coffee in the morning with tons of vanilla (which is weird since I don't tend to drink other sugary sweet drinks).
Hot tea - flavored and unflavored again not too sweet. But not in the summer!

That's it! probably not much help...

My swap out has been green tea w sweet and low. I get my cold, sweet fix and a bit of caffeine. I guess you could make it with sparkling water to get your fizzy fix!

SoBe waters. I love the Apple Pear and the Yumberry. These are the Lfewater flavors so 0 calories & 0 sugar. They also have coconut waters now with fruit flavors but they do have sugar-though less than a soda. I think they take a little getting used to but pretty good. I also use Crystal Light mixers or Archer Farms from Target has an Apple Pear flavor. At home I sometimes add lime slices to water for flavor.

I aquit a while back and i was ADDICTED to Dr. Pepper. i could go thru a case (24 cans) in 2 days. I was diagnosed with IBS and dr. suggested cutting out high fructose corn syrup. So i did and it worked. Symptoms disapeared almost immediately. (of course hfcs is in A LOT of things!!!!)

The way I did it was to drink more 100% juices like simply orange and welch's grape juice. I don't like iced tea or really any kind of tea except for chai lattes. so /i would drink one bottle of juice in the morning and then the rest of the day I would drink SMART WATER (new addiction and there really is a difference and it is amazing) or if in a restaurant I get water with lemon or fresh lemonade. I lost at least 40 lbs just from stopping sodas.

Best of luck!!!!

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

My husband and I gave up our obsession with Diet Pepsi a little over a year ago. I swear that stuff is addicting!!
We switched over to drinking hot tea or cold tea depending on the weather.
Also, I like La Croix ,flavored or unflavored sparkling water- not sweet at all, but gives me the fizziness of soda I want sometimes. I'll still have an occasional soda, but only regular, not diet - because one regular soda is all I'll want. Good luck!

o I sooo can't go there! I must have my diet dp or its not a good day for anyone in this house! !

Soda water with lemons (you get the fizz that way) or Lacroix or a cheaper version of it. After awhile you won't miss soda.

We don't drink many sodas at all at our house. We do drink a ton of water.

You can spice it up with a little lemon or slice of orange.

When you are drinking water, think about all the calories you are NOT ingesting!

plain water, iced tea has tons of calories too..it tastes disgusing for a week and then you start craving it. I'm starting now too. that crappy thing is as soon as you stop drinking it it tastes bland again and you have to do that few days of forcing yourself to drinki it again

You almost have to re-train your tongue to like water again.
I like plain water - warm, cold, hot - it's all good.
When it gets a bit boring I'll put a drop or two of lemon or lime juice in the water.
Just a hint of flavor can be very refreshing.
My husband likes juice and cider but he'll water it down with half water.
Our son loves plain milk and he likes chocolate milk every so often.
I could never stand drinking milk but I like cultured buttermilk - a nice cold glass with a tiny sprinkle of salt on top (or drink it when I'm eating a dill pickle).

I have a soda stream machine which carbonates your water, then I add root beer flavored stevia (natural sweetener). Love it!!

I add Mio to a glass of water a day but only ONCE a day. I drink water- COLD love it that way. I also like coffee with French Vanilla Creamer - can not stand Tea any kind in any way.