In praise of giving up soda pop
I’ve been carbonated drink free for 33 days as I write this. Prior to this, I was drinking between 0.5 – 2.0 L of Diet Pepsi per day. I figured it was time to try to kick the stuff, especially as I started to read up on aspartame and I didn’t like what I was seeing.
I went cold turkey: I just stopped drinking it one day. The first four days were the hardest as I went through the whole caffeine withdrawal thing – I don’t drink tea or coffee, so perhaps this could have been worse. I did have some headaches but I took some Tylenol to help stave those off.
It’s worth noting that I did make a few other dietary changes, mainly to add more fruit and vegetables to my diet. I did not remove most junk foods that I currently eat and I certainly did consume chocolates, candy, etc. during this period of time. I did not change my exercise patterns (e.g. still saying fairly sedentary).
Here are some high level observations:
1. I have increased mental clarity and focus compared to one month ago. There were a couple of other events that contributed to this, but cutting soft drinks out of my diet had a big impact, I’m sure.
2. I do have the occasional craving. They aren’t a painful, but they do feel like a compulsion to do something and there’s other physiological reactions which I would say are like a starving persion smelling a tasty meal being prepared.
3. I have a more laid-back approach to blogging of late and I’m not afraid to skip weekdays anymore. Can I attribute this to kicking soda pop? Not sure.
4. As per #3, I’m not writing as many blog posts as I normally would in a month and I’ve been writing a few more short posts than normal.
5. I don’t get the same enjoyment out of a lot of the junk foods that I have been consuming of late, particularly the salty stuff. Much like drinking and smoking go together for some people, salty foods and soda pop have always been a winning combo for me. Now that the carbonated sweet is gone, that stuff just doesn’t appeal so much. Reading Steve Pavlina’s blog and learning more about his experiments with a raw food diet (see this link to a very recent update on his raw food diet) and his juice feast have made me think more about the quality of the food that I’m putting into my body. I’m certainly not planning to adopt the same end of the continuum where he currently resides (I’m a devoted carnivore), but I’m starting to accept and believe in the value of a balanced diet.
6. As I go through this, I’m using a paper journal to help track my progress on this habit-building (breaking?) exercise. I’ve maintained paper journals at other points in my life but I haven’t done so for about eight years. The first think that I write in each journal entry is how long I’ve been following a certain habit, e.g. x days without Diet Pepsi. I find it to be very helpful!
The tough thing about measuring the impact of removing something from your life is that you can’t keep everything else from changing, so it can be hard to measure the effect of consciously adding or removing something. I do feel that kicking soda pop has been beneficial, but other things have happened that are helping me to focus on certain aspects of my life.
I’m going to keep tracking my creative output as I go through this process. I’m not writing as much, but I am doing other online activity. My hope is that over time I can build some discipline that will help me tackle larger creative projects.
I set out to do a 30 day trial primarily as an exercise to help rebuild some willpower. I’m happy with the overall experience, so I now plan to make this a permanent lifestyle change. The 30 day trial concept was something I picked up from both Steve Pavlina and Scott Young and it’s certainly worth trying.
I’m now working on cutting out potato chips. My long term approach is to start with these small successes and gradually phase out lots of other bad habits by setting a series of modest goals. I’m pleased so far with how it’s going!
