Step 6 - Soft Drinks

My thoughts on Coke and soft drinks in general have been covered extensively in previous posts. Needless to say, I truly believe soft drinks are... well, needless.

A fun, related side trip: Death By Caffeine

To my credit, I've virtually eliminated soft drinks from my repertoire since starting the Rehab Diet. But there's one instance where I contradict myself and can't seem to shake them: as alcoholic mixers. I seldom drink during the week but my consumption on an average weekend night (usually just once a weekend) might best be described as "a lot" to "too much."

Yes, I know, that's a lot of wasted calories. And I must admit, the days I have the most trouble sticking to my plan are those after a night of heavy drinking. Plenty of skinny people have told me I have to stop drinking alcohol altogether to lose weight. Well, that's obviously another lie :-) I've lost 15 pounds drinking once or twice a week. But Step 6 still presents a challenge.

Since week one I've successfully avoided Coke as a mixer and switched to 7-Up or Sprite. All well and good for being faithful to the Rehab Diet, but the sugar and calories are still there (I've tried to switch back to Diet Soft Drinks and I just can't do it. That "fake" sweet taste completely repulses me now. More proof that the taste buds can be trained and re-trained!). So with ALL soft drinks now off the menu, what's a borderline binge drinker to do?

At first I reasoned with myself that a switch to Tonic Water would be OK. I'm a fan of the Gin & Tonic and that's not a soft drink, right? But that's really just jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire - Tonic has just as much sugar and calories as 7-Up.

So in the true spirit of the Rehab Diet, I think I really only have one option here (other than the "not an option" of not drinking alcohol at all): switch to water or calorie-free sparkling water. Or maybe skip the mixer altogether and switch to wine. Hell, I'm sure it won't be long before I'm knocking 'em back straight up! There's progress for you.