Giving up sugared drinks was one of the first positive changes I made back in 2001 when I was at my heaviest. I was stuck in a rut that may be familiar to you: virtually every day included a McDonalds run for a supersized Big Mac meal. (The reason for this routine may be familiar to you too — my kitchen was so hopelessly cluttered with junk and garbage and dirty dishes that it was often impossible to cook — but that is another story.)

With the meal comes a soda, of course. Back then, the supersized soda was 42 ounces — more than 400 calories.

I felt so much despair about my size and my out of control life that it seemed laughable to order a diet cola. “I’m as big as a whale,” I thought, “so who would I be kidding?”

But one day something clicked. It would be so easy to just switch to diet soda. And it couldn’t hurt, could it? It’s not like I was asking myself to give up the food, the “treat” of going out for fast food every day, the security of a hot meal without the effort of facing my chaotic kitchen. So from that day forward, I started ordering the Diet Coke instead of regular. And then I started drinking diet soda at home instead of regular soda. Nobody told me I was too fat to drink diet soda. It was as if nothing had changed.

But it had. I was ingesting perhaps 800 or 1000 fewer calories a day. I stopped getting bigger. In fact, in the months that followed, I started to notice that my clothes were gradually getting looser.

Over time, I also realized that my heavily-sweetened drivethru coffees could also be switched over to sugarfree, so I started using Splenda. This too made an impact.

Nowadays, I also avoid drinking fruit juice most of the time — I eat my fruit whole in order to get the fiber and filling bulk of the fruit, not just the fruit sugars that are present in juice.

A recent study suggests that people who drink diet sodas tend to gain weight. The researchers are unsure whether drinking diet sodas actually somehow causes weight gain or whether people who are worried about weight gain switch to diet sodas and then tend to go on gaining weight anyway.

Over the years since 2001 I have drastically reduced my soda intake (diet or otherwise). I will frequently just drink water (tap or sparkling). Every day I also have several cups of black tea (which I do sweeten with a teaspoonful of sugar). But we are talking about baby steps here, and dramatic change does not happen overnight. If you are drinking a lot of your daily calories in sugary sodas, coffees or fruit juices, consider switching to sugarless alternatives — it can be an easy way to make a big difference in your life!

Remember:

Choose no more than one tweak per month – don’t try to pile them on! Practicing a single tweak for at least a full month gives you the best chance of forming a real habit and life change. Do not try to add another tweak until the previous tweak has become a habitual part of your life (this can sometimes take longer than a month).

This is all about loving yourself and creating a joyful life! Therefore, when choosing a new tweak to practice, pick one that is appealing and gives you a sense of anticipation.

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Related posts:

• Tweak: Daily Fruits and Vegetables
• Tweak: Eat Dinner at the Table