Diet Sodas

One of the easiest ways I've found to cut out calories and sugar is by switching to diet sodas. Yes, it takes some getting used too and some diet sodas taste terrible. Personally I don't really care for either Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi.

The easiest way to get over the taste of diet drinks is to choose a soda with a strong flavor which will mask any off flavors from the artificial sweeteners. One of the best flavor wise is Diet Dr. Pepper (including it's store brand clones, Kroger's Diet Dr. K and Wal-Mart's Diet Dr. Thunder). When they advertise it tastes just like regular Dr. Pepper they are not lying.

Some other good ones that I drink often are Coke Zero (and it's Wal-Mart clone, Cola Zero), Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi, Diet Mt Dew, Kroger Cola Oh! (another Coke Zero clone).

Once you get used to the taste of the diet sodas, the real stuff will taste sickly sweet and just remind you how much sugar you are cutting out of your diet. It has helped me tremendously.

I used to drink Mt Dew at a clip of a 2-liter a day. Adding up the sugar content of that soda it's the equivalent of nearly a 5 pound bag of sugar a week. That's 2000g of sugar, or 8000 calories a week.

For a comparison, a 12 oz can of Wild Cherry Pepsi contains 150 calories, 28 g of total carbs, 28 grams of sugar and 30 mg sodium. Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi contains (as expected) 0 calories, 0 grams sugar and 35 mg sodium. Very slight increase on the sodium but dropping all of the calories.