First Person Singular: Kicking cola out of my diet

By Beth Kinder
Winfield High School

One of the most popular types of drinks among teenagers today is soda. But like other things that are popular, it’s not necessarily good for you.

Soda is loaded with extra sugar and empty calories, not to mention the acids that are in it. Even diet soda has acid, so the people who drink it to try to lose weight are not really helping themselves. There are no calories, true, but there are sugar substitutes, and the acid in the drink can cause bloating and make them gain inches instead of weight.

I have always been an excessive soda drinker. I used to drink at least one 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew every day - sometimes two or even three on special occasions. I switched to diet after I gained nearly 50 pounds in about a year and a half, but even after the switch - which I thought would help me lose the weight - I did not see one pound lost. In fact, I gained 10 more.

Finally, this summer, I gave soda up completely. I lost 10 pounds in two months and then another five pounds later. Now giving up soda may not seem like a big deal, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.

The soda companies say that they add caffeine to their drinks for flavor, but as any avid pop drinker knows, caffeine-free and caffeinated sodas taste the same. Caffeine is found in chocolate and tea naturally, but it is added to soda to make it addictive. So if you drink anywhere near as much as I used to, you can become addicted within days.

I know this from experience. I would get major headaches when I tried to give it up. I’d be irritable and tired if I went as little as one day without drinking at least one 12 ounce can of soda.

Like I said, I gave up soda over the summer, but when school started again, I faced a challenge. Just seeing all the kids in my classes drinking soda made me crave Mountain Dew so badly that I finally gave in. I started drinking soda again, and I gained back all the weight that I had lost over the summer in about two weeks.

After that, I decided I needed to give it up once and for all. I took it slow and cut down to about one 12 ounce can a week, so I could give up the addiction. Now, about two months later, I am still on the one-a-week diet. It is hard the first two or three days of giving it up, but once you get through it, you find that you can sleep better and you don’t get nearly as many headaches. The best thing, though, is how much better your health will be after you give up the soda.

The hardest thing of doing this is just kicking the habit of going to the fridge and pulling out a soda. What worked for me was finding a good replacement drink. I chose V8 Splash - it tastes great and it’s really healthy. Gradually I’ve tried substituting other types of drinks, so that now, when I want a soda, I find some type of juice instead.