My no soda, no carb challenge (Page 2)

My hubby and i have done and re-started something similar. But not about being low-carb just about making healthier choices - more fruits and veggies for me and less to no booze for him.

I am doing no junk food snacks or pop - for 30 days. Which is just such a habit. I can still have booze because it isn't my weak point. But for me, i know that i would be so much better off if i curb this habit.  After doing it for a month last year i am finding it quite easy to do and I've had a bit of 'life stress' over the last few weeks which is good to prevent me from eating all my feelings. Which is very very tempting.  I love pop. It's one of the reasons I exercise so much ... 

We made up our own rules and mine is about junky snacks because it is really my weak point. I have allowed for my own rules that i can have fries with a meal so as to prevent the deprivation issue. We cook a lot at home so i don't feel bad about the occasional burger and fries when we go out. 

Last year my DH did no booze for 30 days - and did well. This year he's allowed himself to have a drink when he goes out. (And he's away on a guy's trip to LV so it's off for now) and resuming when he gets back. 

I find it interesting for you that fruits and many veg are not on the table for you which, i guess it's all about the carbs, but are usually great bang for the nutritional buck.

carbs are not bad for you.  White sugar poured into your donuts is bad for you.  Skipping healthy fruits or starchy vegetables to limit carbs means you are missing out on tons of vitmans, minerals, antioxidants, and phytonutrients

Originally posted by donw

Originally posted by tuwood

Originally posted by skipg

Originally posted by dmiller5

swap the meat and eggs for whole plant foods, and eat enough to not be literally starving to death and just keep those donuts and sodas out

 

beer is absolutely necessary :P

I'm an all or nothing type of person. I can't eat one Oreo or one donut if I crack a bag of Oreos, I'm eating a whole run. I did have some blood work done before I started, results weren't the greatest. I plan on having it tested again soon after my 30 days are up to see the difference. We'll see just how unhealthy the high fat low carb plan is.

I'm the same way.  I've quit drinking soda many times, but every time I tell myself "I'll just drink one a day for lunch" or whatever, I end up dropping a 12 pack or more a day within two to three days.  I just have to say no period.

Am I reading this correctly - 12 soda in one day? I'm fortunate to have never had a soda habit. Serious question - what's the appeal of soda? Does it really taste that great? Will other forms of sugar address the craving or does the soda addict need their fix in the form of liquid sugar? Not sure how to say this delicately so I'll just come right out with it - consuming sodas (and serving them to others, especially kids) seems to me like the ultimate in thoughtless food choices. I find it hard to understand why people drink them at all. Willpower sucks and I totally understand how tough it can be to resist the cookies or Doritos or whatever. But you can't eat the row of Oreos if you don't bring the cookies home from the store. Don

No need to be delicate.

I started drinking soda's regularly at around the age of 12 when I got my first job.  I'd say it wasn't anything special other than it was just what I drank and it tasted good.  Over time it got to the point where that's all I wanted to drink because water just didn't taste "good" the way that the fizzy sugary beverage did.
When I got out of the Navy back in 1997 I started making a decent living so I would say from then until roughly 2010 I ONLY drank soda morning noon and night right up until bed.  I'd stop at the gas station and buy a 52 oz. Mountain Dew on the way to work and it would be gone by 9:00.  I'd drink one or two 1 liter Mountain Dew or Coke bottles before lunch and then I'd have a super sized soda for lunch at whatever unhealthy fast food place I went to.  Then as you can imagine I had another couple or three 1 liter bottles the rest of the afternoon until I got home and I've have at least another 3 or 4 (usually cans) before bed at night.

Ironically I never felt "addicted" to it was simply what I drank.  I became so accustomed to it that my body would almost reject regular water if I tried to drink it.
I truly don't understand how I didn't weight 400 lbs. because I was often consuming more than 4000 calories a day of just soda.  The only thing I can figure was that extreme amounts of caffeine in the soda kept my metabolism pegged enough to counteract the nasty calories.  I weighed around 220 lbs. (5'11") which was certainly obese, but not morbidly. 
I finally kicked the habit when I got the itch to do triathlons back in 2009.  When I started experiencing the mass cravings for soda all day and night I began to realize just how addicted I was to it.  I also realized that it was a multiple level addiction because I was addicted to the sugar as much as I was the caffein as much as I was the "fizzy" feeling in my throat.  So I would often drink carbonated water just to get a "fix" for one of the addictions.  Over the past seven years as I mentioned above there were a few times that I tried having a casual soda with a meal eating out or to stay awake when traveling and it took me all of a day or two before I was full on binge drinking like before and then I'd spend weeks (or sometimes months) trying to kick the habit again.

I truly do see it as poison to my body now and try to never touch the stuff.  I have found that putting some MIO in my water really helps when the sugar/soda cravings come knocking.  Granted it has artificial sweetener in it, but it's better than a soda.  

Now the other crappy part is while I was growing up drinking crap I was eating every bit as bad so that's a whole other addiction to kick.  The joys of growing up poor and eating like crap.  

Originally posted by donw

Originally posted by tuwood

Originally posted by skipg

Originally posted by dmiller5

swap the meat and eggs for whole plant foods, and eat enough to not be literally starving to death and just keep those donuts and sodas out

 

beer is absolutely necessary :P

I'm an all or nothing type of person. I can't eat one Oreo or one donut if I crack a bag of Oreos, I'm eating a whole run. I did have some blood work done before I started, results weren't the greatest. I plan on having it tested again soon after my 30 days are up to see the difference. We'll see just how unhealthy the high fat low carb plan is.

I'm the same way.  I've quit drinking soda many times, but every time I tell myself "I'll just drink one a day for lunch" or whatever, I end up dropping a 12 pack or more a day within two to three days.  I just have to say no period.

Am I reading this correctly - 12 soda in one day? I'm fortunate to have never had a soda habit. Serious question - what's the appeal of soda? Does it really taste that great? Will other forms of sugar address the craving or does the soda addict need their fix in the form of liquid sugar? Not sure how to say this delicately so I'll just come right out with it - consuming sodas (and serving them to others, especially kids) seems to me like the ultimate in thoughtless food choices. I find it hard to understand why people drink them at all. Willpower sucks and I totally understand how tough it can be to resist the cookies or Doritos or whatever. But you can't eat the row of Oreos if you don't bring the cookies home from the store. Don

I struggle with Diet Mtn. Dew and my craving is a combination of the sweet and fizzy...  I routinely slam a 44oz fountain pop in the morning and consider it a success if I don't drink any more the rest of the day.  On a more excessive day I can do two 44oz's plus a few 20oz fillups at Subway or JJ's..... 

I'm not getting the empty calories of sugar pop but I'm getting all the nasty chemicals plus I've heard from Nutritionists some people have issues where their bodies process the artificial sweeteners similarly to sugar, essentially being "tricked" into insulin production etc... Not good at all...

As for not having sweets in the house to eliminate the consumption, I'm in full agreement.  However from personal experience, if I'm craving something, even if it's not in the house that doesn't mean it won't drive me half crazy...  

Nice work!  Although there is someone on the internets explaining how to get workout energy from proteins alone, you are probably going to have to incorporate enough carbs to fuels your workouts.  My wife tried a really low carb diet and had to stop because she keep bonking when riding and running. The difference is now you will be eating carbs for fuel as opposed to just eating carbs.

Awesome job!

I've always found it very strange that people who care enough to exercise and get fit put bad food in their body.  Very odd behaviour.

Not to mention bad food is generally cheaper.  Yes, you can eat healthy and cheap, but generally speaking.
McDonalds $5, Panera $10

First, there's nothing odd at all about athletes eating poorly, it's actually quite common.  Especially when you consider food choices and patterns typically start at a very young age.  I've been an athlete my entire life, I'm not someone who picked up exercise later in life because I needed to lose a ton of weight or due to some other health issue.  My dietary choices are lifelong although I did eat a lot more crap when I was younger.  

Then add in that extra degree of difficulty and/or cost to eat healthier and it's actually odd that someone would think an athlete making poor dietary choices is odd...

Perfectly stated. I know people who try to lose weight and give up out of frustration. I tell them that if simply losing weight was my goal, I'd have just as hard of a time doing it. Training for a race however is a much more powerful goal and feels less like a chore.

I agree regarding competition, learning new skills and being outdoors.  

However I slightly disagree on the indulgence comment as to me it's a lifestyle and in my DNA.... I view indulgences as decadent foods, expensive restaurants etc...

Sport, exercise, working out, whatever we call it, to me that is like air.... The need for it just is....

I agree completely.  I think to people who don't feel the way we do about exercise it's easily considered selfish of us when we get our workouts in even if it means adjusting schedules a bit...

I'm pretty good at adjusting my workout schedule as long as I'm given a decent head's up.  My family will all agree I can be a ba$tard to deal with if they drop something into my schedule without much lead time... 

Especially when it comes to cycling... Living in Michigan we already have a condensed season, I view every missed ride as an opportunity I'll never have again...

agree, I like to think of it as being fit is more of a byproduct of the lifestyle we choose to live.  If our friends like to go on group runs and eat healthy then we tend to go on group runs and eat healthier.

Any time I've just exercised to get fit, it has always worked but as soon as the race or whatever was over I'd be right back to pounding soda and stuffing my face with Oreos.