I’ve realised that I’m a little too fond of fizzy drinks. It’s not a severe addiction to the point of downing gallons, but I am drinking a 330ml can of Pepsi Max almost every day. Sometimes a little more.
Depends on the reason and what you find most motivating. Addiction is tricky and it’s rarely just one thing. Caffeine is physically addictive but there’s also a psych aspect to it.
If it’s about the caffeine, try switching to coffee or tea. If you want to go cold turkey, caffeine withdrawal peaks at about three days with symptoms lessening to minimal after about nine.
If it’s a convenience thing, try keeping a water bottle on you and just drink that. If you find water too boring, try it carbonated or with a twist of lemon or other fruit. Or don’t keep it in the house; it’s a lot easier to not put it on the shopping list than resist the temptation when it’s right there. You could also focus on the money aspect. Give yourself a goal to save up for purely with what you save on soda.
Maybe just understand what you’re doing, what the shit actually is you’re consuming and let your hate, rage and despise be your guide. Sounds like a stupid advice, but in the end it just boils down to that. Like the best way to quit smoking is…well…quitting smoking.
I managed to down a palette of red bulls in a few days. For a long time. Now I’m on green tea and plain water. Red bull was so expensive, I could easily swap it for very good white tea and still don’t loose money 😁
Is it the sweetness that you’re addicted to? The fizz itself maybe? There are drinks that are sweet yet not fizzy, and there are drinks that are fizzy yet not sweet. If you can find out, you can begin to substitute less unhealthy options. Then eventually quit entirely.
Switch to a caffeine-free version some of the time, then all of the time. For Pepsi Max this is only available in the 1.5L bottles where I am, so add in an extra step switching from cans to bottles (which should also reduce cost/waste).
Buy a nice reusable water bottle and ensure you have a clean, not-bad-tasting source of fresh water to fill it with (where I am this means bottled or filtered). Keep it filled and close to you at all times. Only use water in it.
Once you’re comfortable with these adjustments, taper off the fizzy drink. If you’re still having significant trouble or cravings, or substitute for something worse: just keep drinking the fizzies. It’s one of the least harmful bad habits you could have, and depending on your circumstances might be a best case scenario
A few things. Firstly, regarding waste cans are actually recyclable unlike bottles. As for buying 1.5l bottle and then drinking only a glass or something like that a day, for some people (talking from my own experience) they don’t drink the volume of the drink, just the unit. 1 bottle = 1 can for me, doesn’t matter the volume 😅 So I usually advocate for reducing the size of units if a person lacks self control.
I think that’s true for small containers, such as a can. Whereas 1.5L is an impractical amount to drink of anything, more likely to lead to drinking until satiation rather than until the container is finished. Especially where the starting point of the habit involves opening a fresh container with a certain aesthetic, and finishing it. That itself can be psychologically addicting. It was for me.
Neither aluminium nor plastic are infinitely recyclable. I read somewhere that factoring in the energy and materials required in the initial production of the container, plastic is about 13x more wasteful. So while of course it depends on serving size (which would logically be different transitioning from small cans to large bottles), as well as recycling programs in your area and their respective efficiencies, you’re most likely correct that the carbon footprint of large bottle would be higher overall.
What I really meant to get at was ‘waste’ in terms of the amount of empty containers that tend to pile up around you. For myself being addicted to drinking cans of fizzy, I would stack them around me and it would become a much larger job to clean them up than it is for large bottles.
I’ll also say that while being addicted to cans, I lamented their relatively higher cost and was more compelled to go for small bottle form factor on occasions where they were available cheaper than cans, rather than large bottles. Small bottles of course being by far the most wasteful.
Seltzer. Kombucha.
that’s disgusting dude. try soda water. fucks sake
Chat is it frowned upon to drink beverages
i don’t know if it’s frowned upon to drink that much sugary garbage every day but it should be
Its not sugary - he said Pepsi Max. And even if it was, get your judgemental ass out of here. OP literally posted this trying to get advice how to break the habit.
Its not sugary - he said Pepsi Max
ok dude. whatever you call it. fake liquid garbage
im not a judgement. its a perspective from someone who refuses to allow that shit into his house
I’m not a dude.
The comments here are fucking wild.
Outside of the caffeine, there’s nothing inherently special about a fizzy drink habit that would make it remarkable from other habits when it comes to giving it up. So a guide like https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-break-a-bad-habit-202205022736 could be useful.
that’s rather untrue. sugar is actually very addictive, and the quantity in soft drinks (they have additives that make them actually palatable - without they’d be so sweet you couldn’t drink much) makes them particularly problematic
Wait. You can talk??
Talk? No. Type? Yes. (written from my Lappy 486)
Just stop. There are no tricks.
Do or do not.
This is tough, because I used to be there but I kind of grew out of. I just started drinking tons of water all the time and now if when I get thirsty I just crave water.
I do drink two iced pour over coffees in the mornings though. They seem to keep me going for most the day caffeine-wise, so that’s helped a bunch too.
Drink fizzy water instead.
🤮
wrong. fizzy water is great.
opinions are like assholes etc etc
one man’s fizzy water is another man’s treasure, or something
why?
Because it’s disgusting
Doesn’t have to be! Add some flavor! I was always partial to adding a bit of pineapple juice.
I’m not a fan of fizzy water either. Plain or flavored.
Sometimes a small cold Gatorade does the trick for me.
Whenever I see this “opinion” I think of how out of whack the person’s taste buds must be. Fizzy waters are great, they just don’t have sugar.
“you mean everyone doesn’t have the same exact taste in things that i do!?”
Not everyone likes the taste of quinine it’s super bitter bro
Tonic water has quinine. Seltzer doesn’t.
And we’re talking about fizzy water which could mean either
tonic water is further from water than vitamin water is. fizzy water means exactly 1 thing: carbonated, plain water
🤮
Co2 mod to a used sodastream is awesome
I had to stop drinking carbonated beverages and caffeinated beverages at the advice of my voice trainer - and I kicked the habit by getting some fruit juice concentrate and drinking that (diluted in water obviously) when I was craving a fizzy drink. It didn’t take long for me to stop craving them entirely, honestly. If its the fizzy part you crave, then add it to sparkling water instead. Good luck stranger.
What worked for me was to find a replacement for the sensation in my mouth. The big problem with a lot of sodas is the sugar and calories so I wanted to find a substitute that’s lower in those categories. I broke my addiction to Mt Dew with a big glass of the coldest water I could get, the cold mouth feel took the place of the fizzy one. I’m back on fizzy stuff but I stick to flavored seltzer water and usually only one with dinner.
BDS puts most of the big bring junkfood on the boycott list. Join the club.
What is BDS?
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, a Palestinian-led boycott of a small number of companies that are particularly heavily involved in Israeli apartheid and colonialism of Palestinians.
This feels like a trick… BDSM?
replace with fizzy water
This is how I got off beer and wine during the week. Sip fizzy water. It’s perfect. Replacing one habit with another.
Okay, I had trouble getting off of sodas, and everyone suggested fizzy water instead, and they all tasted nasty, like maybe the water sat in the room with the fruit maybe.
But this is the only time I’ll ever say good about Walmart, their walmart branded carbonated waters are 99 cents a liter and taste amazing. The Fuji Apple one is the one I usually get and it tastes like a fizzy apple soda but doesn’t have sugar.
Since I avoid walmart like the plague, I’ve learned to just drink water now. Tap water is my go to. But these things are like my guilty pleasure, which is a far cry better than the sugar drinks imo.
