You had best stay away from Judie this week. You see, after years of drinking a minimum of two Diet Cokes each morning for… years… last night she quit cold turkey. Yes, no Diet Coke for her. As she announced on Facebook,
I hesitate to say anything, but i will need all the moral support you all can provide … i had my (hopefully) last diet coke this evening. i’m quitting cold turkey as of about 30 minutes ago. can i do it? we shall seeeeeee….
When many of us had expressed our concern for Kevin and… small animals Judie referenced the last time she did this and asked,
“Was I that bad? 😉
Her daughter was quick to jump in and wrote-
Yes…you were that bad mama. lol but it’s okay. diet coke is your drug. you’ll kick the habit. but it’s going to be really tough.
Fact is, on average, Americans drink 44.7 gallons of soda per person per year. Add in 4 gallons of sport beverages, 1.5 gallons of “value added water” and 11.5 gallons of fruit beveragesand… that’s a lot of soda and other sweet drinks and a lot of sugar or artificial sweeteners. Today’s food tip gives Judie a winning tactic, cuts out all the sugars and other sweeteners without compromising on flavor and… saves us all. 🙂
Elana doesn’t use sugar or artificial sweeteners. Instead she uses Stevia. (Get it here through our Amazon Portal.) Her favorite, Body Ecology Diet’s Stevia. If you like sweet and are trying to cut down on the sugar, high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners Stevia may be a great alternative.
Here’s one way to use it that is healthier, saves money and… tastes great.
Mellon Water
Ingredients:
Take four one gallon bottles of water
One medium sized melon or other fruit
One bottle of liquid Stevia
Procedure:
Cut the melon into four sections.
Cube each section into small pieces that easily fit into the opening in the bottle
Remove 24 ounces of water from each bottle and put into a fifth bottle.
Put one quarter of the melon into each of the 1 gallon water bottles.
Let sit overnight and chill
Pour your melon water into a glass
Sweeten with Stevia to taste
Obviously you can use almost any melon, sweet peaches, lemon, lime, orange, kiwi. You can even mix fruit.
Experiment but trust us, it is a delicious drink you will love.
And best of all, not only is it healthy but this flavored water costs about $1.50 a gallon. Get the Stevia here.
I bought a water carbonator, and now I just drink fizzy water with a splash of fruit juice. As a former Diet Coke addict myself, I promise you it can be done!
I was big on Coffee and Coke Zero. Now I just drink the non-caffeinated stuff – like fruit waters. I still have some regular soft drinks, but the caffeine is mostly gone now.
I’ll have to give that a try. My goal is to significantly reduce my soda and bottled fruit juice intake and substitute water. That melon water looks intriguing!
It is yummy!
Super yummy!
It is amazing how much water you go through when it is flavored with real fruit. Mm.
Sent from my iPod
Coke Zero, I love it. I am now using non sweetened/slightly sweetened tea to get me through the day.
I honestly like drinking water just fine, and always have some in a Tupperware liter covered cup at work. I have greatly diminished my coffee intake this year, and by limiting easy availability of soda have cut way back as well. Every little bit helps … But I have no desire to go cold turkey! You go girl!
So today is day three, and the headache (from hell) has started. The fact that it hurts so bad tells me that I really needed to stop.
So far my favorite thing is plain RO water with a lemon squeezed in it, but I have the Stevia drops Elana recommends, and they make a lovely lemonade or sweet tea with no weird aftertaste. I’ve also ordered some flavored Stevia drops to try, upon Elana’s and Julie S’s recommendation. =)