Cooking Keto With Kristie

Surviving the Two-Week Soda Swap (2nd website post)

Congratulations on deciding to join us for a two-week challenge. Try to keep an open mind and do your best. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just promise to learn along the way. 

Quit Cold Turkey or Make a Gradual Change? 

Some folks find that they can avoid diet soft drinks by making small, gradual changes while others need to avoid them altogether. Regardless of what works best for you, here are some strategies to help you be successful. 

Cold Turkey. When I decided to stop using diet soft drinks, I decided to avoid them completely. Instead of drinking 4-6 cans per day, I drank coffee in the morning and water throughout the day. My biggest challenge was caffeine withdrawal. If you decide to make drastic changes in the amount of caffeine you consume, you may want to prepare by reading the tips below for surviving caffeine withdrawal. 

The bonus was that within a week, I noticed a considerable improvement in my appetite and hunger as well as noticeably fewer sugar cravings. After 8-10 years of rarely consuming diet soft drinks, I no longer crave them. Moreover, on the rare occasions when I do drink a diet soft drink, it leaves me feeling hungrier and battling cravings that I usually don’t have. 

Last, an important change that I noticed was that I am often thirsty for water rather than any sweetened beverage. Over time it’s truly water that I need to quench my thirst. 

Some people aren’t fortunate enough to have tap water that tastes good. In that case, a water filter, like a simple Brita water filter can help. Some refrigerators have water dispensers that filter water, making it taste better. You can also purchase filters to put on your tap that help make water more palatable. 

Gradual changes. While I chose to quit using soft drinks cold turkey, David has always taken a more gradual approach. He started by purchasing diet soft drinks in single serving cans, which helps him limit serving sizes. He then weaned down from 4-5 cans per day to 2-3 and eventually to one per day, and then finally to one per week. By the time he got to a limit of one per week, he had started enjoying drinking other things like unsweetened ice tea. He also found that when he had a diet soft drink, he no longer enjoyed the taste. 

One advantage of a gradual change is that you can still satisfy cravings and generally avoid caffeine withdrawal. 

Getting Started

1. Start by thinking about how much and how often you drink diet sodas and decide whether you want to go cold turkey or gradually reduce your consumption. 
2. Look for alternatives to diet sodas and keep them stocked. What will you drink instead? Plan ahead. You might also want to put your stash of diet soft drinks out of site or out of reach. 
3. Think about why you want to do the Soda Swap challenge. What do you want to learn about yourself? Channeling our motivation can help even with a short-lived, two-week commitment. 
4. If you’re concerned about caffeine withdrawal, be sure to prepare. 
5. Tell others. It’s often helpful to warn, tell a spouse, partner, or coworker so that they can support you. They might want to join the challenge too! 

Tips for surviving caffeine withdrawal

If you’re used to consuming caffeine first thing in the morning or throughout the day, then you may need to intentionally replace your caffeinated beverages with caffeine, even if it’s smaller amounts. 

Gradually reducing the amount of caffeinated beverages you consume can help you to avoid headaches. For example, instead of 6 caffeinated drinks, reduce to four for three days and then to two and gradually to none. 

If you do develop a headache because you’ve reduced caffeine, Excedrin Migraine is an over the counter medication that contains small amounts of caffeine. I’ve used it to successfully wean off of diet soft drinks in the past. You can also consume unsweetened beverages that contain caffeine or are sweetened with an approved sweetener. 

For other suggestions for dealing with caffeine withdrawal, please read Caffeine Withdrawal Headache: Why It Happens and What You Can Do and How to Quit Caffeine. 

What will you drink? 

You have to stay hydrated, so before we begin Soda Swap, consider what you might drink instead of diet soft drinks sweetened with sweeteners that are likely to be problematic (aspartame, phenylalanine, or acesulfame potassium aka ace K). Beverages sweetened with “approved” sweeteners (see the Approved Sweetener post) are not a bad option if you crave the sweet taste. 

Below, we’ve offered some suggestions to replace diet soft drinks. We can’t possibly list every potential beverage, so these are just a few suggestions. If your preferred beverage isn’t on the list, then please look at the ingredients list. If the ingredients include sucralose, acesulfame potassium, phenylalanine, aspartame, maltitol, sorbitol, dextrin, or dextrose, then you will want to avoid it. 

Options for when you need caffeine

Sometimes we just need to start the day, or perk up the afternoon with a little caffeine. Coffee or tea can help. Feel free to add an approved sweetener to these and to add cream, half and half, or FairLife. 

Here are some ideas that may help if you need a little caffeine:
Coffee with cream, half and half, Fairlife (and sweetener if preferred)

STOK unsweetened cold brew coffee (add your own sweetener if preferred)

Tea – black tea has more caffeine than some other kinds

Zevia – not all of the Zevia options have caffeine, but these do:

• Sodas: Cola, Dr. Zevia, Mountain Zevia, Vanilla Cola, and Cherry Cola
• Energy Drinks: Grapefruit, Mango Ginger, Raspberry Lime, Kola, Strawberry Kiwi, and Pineapple Paradise
• Organic Teas: Black Tea, Black Tea (Lemon flavor), Black Tea (Raspberry flavor), Black Tea (Peach flavor), Earl Gray (Blood Orange flavor), and Green Tea

Options for when you crave carbonation

For some people, it’s the carbonation that makes soft drinks craveable. If you’re missing carbonation, sparkling waters may be a good option for you. There are also numerous flavored waters that have no sweetener. Be sure to check the ingredients even within the same brand because some are sweetened. If you have a Soda Stream, you can also make your own carbonated concoction.

Here are some ideas that may help if you need a little carbonation:
Bubly (beware of the Bubly Burst as they have artificial sweeteners), Aha, La Croix, Topo Chico, club soda, seltzer with True Lemon or True Lime (or a squeeze of lemon or lime), Virgil’s zero sugar (cola, root beer, cream soda, etc), Good & Gather (some of these also have caffeine), Zevia colas/fruit sodas

Options for replacing sweetened beverages 

Many of us choose to consume diet soft drinks because we enjoy the sweet taste. While I’d argue that it’s best to move away from using them to wean ourselves off the sweet taste, that may be easier said than done. If it’s a sweet flavor you crave, we’ve listed a few options below.

I will add that you may want to limit sweet-tasting beverages to meals or at the end of meals. There’s some limited evidence that continuing to consume sweet-flavored beverages can perpetuate cravings and potentially increase hunger. The best way to know whether that’s true for you is to give yourself a two-week trial without it.

Here are some ideas that may help if you need a little sweetness:
Zevia, Bai, Tropicana zero sugar line of drinks, unsweetened tea or flavored seltzer that you sweeten with a liquid stevia or liquid monkfruit, Humm zero sugar kombucha