I accomplished this for reasons very different from what I initially intended. When I first made the list, I envisioned myself gathering inner strength and realizing that my health was more important than a fizzy sweet tasting drink. Unfortunately... not so much.
What ended up helping me eliminate my soda intake completely ended up being the pregnancy. I've been trying to get proper nutrition for this baby, while not going so obsessively overboard in food intake journals that I start to resent the baby taking over my life. Which basically means that I'm trying to have more iron and veggies, meats, protein, but mostly I try to eat what makes me feel good. And as of halfway through my first trimester, soda does not agree with me at all.
In the beginning of the nausea and general ickiness, I latched on to Ginger Ale. I'd read that ginger was really good for stomach ailments, and personally, the carbonation helped me alleviate nausea. Or it just helped me burp, whatever, sometimes I need help burping just like an infant. During the first few weeks I also completely eliminated diet coke as part of my caffeine cleansing.
Oh caffeine and diet coke cleansing, how that sucked. I don't know exactly how I got in the habit of having diet coke all the time. Its bad for you, artificial, and feeds the huge corporations my hard earned money. But nevertheless, I was hooked, and if I went too long without a diet coke, I began to feel like I needed one. Probably only psychological, but it feels real anyway. So when I found out I was pregnant, I decided that the time to eliminate aspartame-flavored carbonated caffeine was NOW. And it was terrible. It really was. I got a horrible week long caffeine headache that ended up turning into a killer migraine (my doctor had prescribed fetus-friendly pain meds, otherwise I don't know what I would have done). I thought I was going to explode, and I didn't know how much was the morning sickness and symptoms, and how much was the caffeine withdrawal. Still, I stuck it out, and by the time I emerged from the first trimester haze I was caffeine and diet coke free.
I kept having an occasional sprite or ginger ale because they helped alleviate light nausea. And then came a time when I realized that the gas in the drinks was actually giving me stomach aches. I was already ridiculously gassy as it was (they tell you its gonna happen during pregnancy, but they don't tell you just how often it happens, or how hilariously uncomfortable it can be),and soda seemed to make it worse. So done it is.
I think I'll be able to keep from drinking it after the baby is born. These last few weeks where soda made me feel achy really cured me. A cold coke doesn't even look appetizing anymore, it just looks like something that might not agree with my system. And just in time for the soda tax...
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