Diet Soda

If someone had told me last year, that I would one day love diet soda and shun the full sugar stuff, I would have told them they were nuts. My step-father was diabetic and I grew up with sugar-free soda in the house; I never could get past the after-taste. After moving out on my own, I would occasionally enjoy some Crystal Light flavors, but would shudder when 'forced' to drink diet soda. Ew ew icky icky ew!

After being diagnosed diabetic, I really didn't change my soda-drinking habits. I didn't drink it often or much when I did; my primary drink of choice is, and has been for years, iced herbal tea. (And I still had that taste issue....) However, for the past few months, I've been controlling my blood glucose, and losing weight, by changing to a low carb diet. Full-sugar soda is *not* low carb. One 20 oz. bottle has more than half - no, more than 3/4!!! of the carbs I should be eating - and a ton of calories!

Look at these stats for 20 oz. of my faves:

Soda	Carbs	Calories
Cherry Coke	250	70
Dr. Pepper	250	67.5
Wild Cherry Pepsi	260	70
Cherry Vanilla Pepsi	250	69
Mountain Dew	290	77

But look at these:

Soda	Carbs	Calories
Diet Cherry Coke	0	0
Diet Lime Coke	0	0
Cherry Coke Zero	0	0
Diet Dr. Pepper	0	0
Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi	0	0
Diet Cherry Vanilla Pepsi	0	0
Diet Mountain Dew	0	<1

So I caved and tried again. Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Mountain Dew were most tolerable to me at first. They were what I would have when I really craved the soda. Then I noticed others not tasting too bad. (I think I've grown used to it.) I have recently discovered that Diet Cherry Pepsi is SO GOOD! I keep forgetting it's diet! And now they have a Diet Cherry Vanilla too, and it is EVEN BETTER! ^-^

I have only one problem though: all those fabulous *different* soda flavors, the Mountain Dew DEWmocracy flavors, Code Red, Vault, cherry, strawberry... They're impossible to find in diet versions... :\

Anyway, here's the trick for switching from regular to diet. Don't drink regular sodas. Stop cold turkey. Then after a week or two of drinking only things like milk, tea, and coffee, pick out a soda flavor you really like, in diet. Polar Birch Beer & Cream Soda are good flavors, in addition to the ones I've already mentioned. Then just gradually add in the others...

Really, I am surprized that I like diet soda now - I was so adamantly against it - but I really do feel like it's a luxury for me now, to have diet soda...