I thought this was a thread about people who get turned on watching people drink Diet Coke. Talk about your Excitotoxins!!!

Getting off my addiction to carbonated soda was as good a move as going paleo. Along with the previous posts and the concern for Aspartame consider the negative effects of any carbonated beverage on your bones. In a nutshell: the acid in soda must be buffered in your system. Calcium is one of your bodies mechanisms (caffeine also interferes with calcium absorption) so calcium is leached from your bones to buffer your gut.

It's a very hard addiction to break but it really is worth it.

http://www.mindconnection.com/library/health/softdrinks.htm

http://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/features/soda-osteoporosis

1 - Make the change if you want to make the change and if you are ready! Diet soda is like crack! It is a problem - but don't stress over it - stressing never fixes anything!

2 - The additives in diet soda are scary and we really shouldn't be ingesting them. But you've got to be ready and committed to phasing the diet soda out of your diet. There is loads of great infor regarding the toxicity of aspartame in Stephens awesome post above.

3 - I would suggest weaning yourself slowly. Here's how I did it: I started by getting some great organic juice and doing 1/2 juice 1/2 soda water for a week or two, then 1/4 juice 3/4 soda water then finally soda water with a squueze of half an orange and half a lemon. Now I drink still water with the squeeze of lemon.

I have a soda maker from http://www.sodastreamusa.com/ which has made the transition away from canned diet sodas sooo much easier.

1. It makes fizzy water-making fun, with unlimited flavour possibilities :)
2. I can use it with unsweetened flavours or fruit juice, to taste
3. I get erythritol based syrups from http://www.naturesflavors.com (I haven't tried their stevia ones) for that rare occasion when I really want a sweet cola... but at least I have to make it myself, it's not just a can sitting in the fridge, tempting me

Also +1 on the iced tea.

I know exactly how you feel. When all my other SAD cravings went away, the one for Diet Coke didn't. I quit it and have one occasionally when I'm really craving one. Otherwise, I drink flavored seltzer.

It's not the same, but I've found that if I drink something overly sweet like DC every day, my palate feels "blown out" and I lose the taste of more subtle flavors.

It's probably not the worst thing if you're keeping it as part of your 20. I just feel like I've cut so many chemicals and fake stuff out of my diet that I personally couldn't justify keeping in something that's all chemicals and probably not good for you.

My husband still drinks Diet Coke, although not as much as he used to, and it's the kind sweetened with Splenda, so aspartame isn't an issue. I think I'll show him this thread, though, because the stuff is still bad for you.

I can't even remember the last time I had a soda. I took a sip of his the other day, just for the hell of it, and it was completely gross - disgustingly sweet. I told him I don't know how he drinks the crap. Ugh.

Give it up for awhile; you may find you don't like it afterwards.

My boyfriend has been going paleo-ish over the last few months (I've finally been able to convert him, yay!) He used to drink several diet cokes a day, and then started getting Cherry Coke Zevia (stevia sodas). They are so pricey, he was just having one of those a day. Sometimes he gets sparkling water and mixes it with a little juice, but now he's almost always having water, unsweetened iced tea, and some lo-cal Gatorade (which I hope to break him of next!). If you kick the habit sooner rather than later, that's great, but I wouldn't sweat it too much; nothing wrong with taking a more incremental approach to implementing all these changes!

Try kombucha or water kefir. And whatever happened to honey?

edit- I know honey is questionable in regards to insulin. What I meant to get at is that honey would have been one of the VERY FEW sweets found in nature by hunter/gatherers and that I truly don't think there's harm consuming a little bit on occassion- especially when the diet consists of adequate bitters.

I'm kinda in the same boat. It's hard. Most of the time, a cold sparkling water will take care of the craving for me. Also, not having the cans of diet cola around the house helps! ;)

One thing that's popped onto my radar recently is kefir soda.

Cheeseslave and Wellness Mama are two blogs that have posted recipes.

I'm thinking of trying this out. For one thing, it'll add some probiotics, and I can control the amount of sweetness to some degree (just enough sugar to keep the grains doing their thing, and decide if I want to add stevia or leave it "dry"). And, it'll be a multi-day process to get one batch of soda, so there's the discipline of planning ahead, some delayed gratification, and the satisfaction of the process. (Plus, I'm thinking that ginger-cardamom cream soda sounds fantastic. I could totally tinker with this stuff.)

Water with lemon / lime slices? Home made iced tea? Iced black coffee? You could sweeten these things with stevia or perhaps some kind of sugar alcohol (xylitol, erythritol etc.) or perhaps even rice syrup (which is free from fructose). There are an abundance of different herbal teas available, I'm sure there must be something out there that would satisfy your 'fetish'!

Mineral water with lime is quite nice. You could sweeten a little with stevia drops perhaps as already mentioned (I use stevia drops in coffee).

I have a problem with Diet Coke personally, it just seems to make me feel toxic after drinking it.

Not keen on the aspartame either - who knows what that could do to you? Why can't the manufacturers of these drinks use stevia? Perhaps because aspartame is a helluva lot cheaper!

I do understand that it's really difficult to leave things behind from your past diet. I still drink coffee but have happily switched to using coconut milk which is even better than soy or dairy.

Have you tried just having one every two days? It is a psychological thing - for example, you want to be able to give yourself a "treat" ?

I broke my habit with sparkling water - is this as bad for you?

i've been drinking bird nest soup every night (i only get the homemade kind back at home). the only reason why i drink it is because it's supposed to be good for complexion.

i’ve been taking the store-bought kind online (e.g. http://www.geocities.jp/hongkong_bird_nest/index_e.htm of famous branded only of course) which is directly mailed from Hong Kong. this would be at a more affordable price.