Addicted to Diet Pepsi

arbroath_lass

I used to drink the same as you. I swapped mine for fizzy water - that worked for me (and paracetamol for the headaches). I still have a tin occasionally now, though. Bandraboy is correct in my experience - cutting down/out should help you lose weight.

eleanor73

bandraboy wrote: »

There is some evidence that your body tries to react in the same way to sweeteners as it does with real sugar and that could be bad for weight loss.

Plus when you consume lots of very sweet tasting drinks, the ultra-sweet taste becomes normal and you are more likely to crave more ultra sweet (often high calorie) foods.

Just what Ive been reading about recently.

Yes I've heard this recently- because you are tasting sugar (even though it's false sugar) your body expects a sugar rush but it doesn't get it so you are morelikely to eat high calorie, sugary foods. Don't want to sound like voice of doom but it's bad for your teeth and your tummy too I think.

Try to push back the time you drink your first can in the morning and try to alternate with water/squash. I know I crave cold bubbly fizzy pop when I'm thirsty and usually if I drink enough water the craving will go. It'll take a while so do it gradually. Unfortunately a bit of willpower comes into it too.

Good luck!:)

jenniewb

Am just myself coming off a Lucosade Alert withdrawal (Lucosade Alert has around 300mg of caffiene per drink....I had two of those a day.... Pepsi Max has around 35mg!!)

I can remember also when I was hooked on Pepsi Max and had to come off that without it being my choice (was in hospital) I didn't get the shakes but I did get pounding headaches and felt just terrible.

It does pass. 1-2 weeks max, and some people don't even get those symptoms. Its fine to take pain killers, but things like mild exercise, relaxation/Hatha yoga and reducing rather then cutting back if you had been taking alot can help. However it can prolong things if you cut back rather then cutting out so if you can at all, I'd say cut it all out in one go and wait it out. It is worth it.

The second thing you gotta look out for is the sweetener cravings- its easy to fall into thinking you want sugar and so guzzle fruit juice or similar. Whilst this may be healthy (one glass a day counts as one of your 5-a-day) it can lead to weight gain (and also any more then one glass a day cannot be included as an additional portion of fruit, no matter how much you drink!) Mixing juice 50-50 with water can be nice but failing that there are sweeteners in things like squash, diet lemonade and cartons of low sugar juice.

Eric_Pisch

the headaches are caused by caffeine withdrawal, caffeine causes the arteries in the body to constrict, they relax again after you stop taking it which is what causes the headache, it passes quickly, going cold turkey on it is not a problem a few paracetamol will sort it out for the day or so it occurs

pepsimax has more caffeine in it than regular coke

in double blind trials it was shown that the avg human can not taste a difference in cola with or without caffeine, so this study concluded the only reason it was added was because of its addictive behaviour

shelley_crow

I used to guzzle Pepsi Max when I was on slimming world. I've never felt so terrible in my life!

I cut it out completely after a couple of months of drinking a LOT. I found cold turkey was the way to go for me, the headaches were bearable. For me, I had a glass of water or diet lemonade instead of the pepsi fix. Now, if I have any pepsi/coke it gives me a cracking headache.

You can do it, good luck.x

tazzy2010_2

Hi have you tried mixing it with caffine free diet coke. Could start off half and half then reduce the diet pepsi overtime so you are eventually getting rid of all the caffine, hopefully with fewer headaches. It may then be easier to switch to water or alternative. I used to be a bit addicted to pepsi max but my densist told me I had to stop as it was affecting my teeth!