This Healthy Hack Finally Got Me Off Diet Coke And Helped Me Drink 2 Gallons Of Water A Day
by Audie Metcalf
My Diet Coke addiction was ... not ideal.
As with everything health related, the internet at large is a raging cesspool of conflicting information, but on the whole it seems consuming excessive amounts of aspartame does have the potential to raise your risk of cancer.
And so, because I am on a true “health journey” as evidenced HERE, HERE, and HERE, drinking a carcinogen 3-10 times a day didn’t really make sense to me anymore.
And yet, as you may know, Diet Coke is, how do you say? Ah yes. Spectacular.
Image from Instagram
And so I got to work, figuring out how to both kick the DC dragon, while also trying to consume my body weight in water.
Here are the beverages that I’ve tried. And when I say tried, I mean I really, really tried. I gave them time, I drank them from different vessels, I used chewy ice, I dabbled in cute glass straws— all of it:
Olipop: Vintage cola, Orange squeeze, Strawberry Vanilla, Cream Soda, Crisp Apple, Banana Cream, Tropical Punch
Poppi: Cola, Doc Pop, Root Beer, Lemon Lime
San Pellegrino “Zero”: Blood Orange and Lemonade
Izze: Blackberry, Peach, Grapefruit
Recess “Mood”: Strawberry Rose, Peach Ginger
I’m sure there’s more but my thumbs are tired, and that’s all I can summon from memory at the moment.
The point is, I have REALLY tried to find an “alt” to pick me up throughout the day that feels refreshing, exciting to look forward to, curbs my desire to shove a handful of goldfish down my throat, and that firmly, permanently encouraged me to set sail to my beloved Diet Coke, once and for all.
Friends? Nothing did the trick. Nothing. I couldn’t kick it. I couldn’t quit it.
U
N
T
I
L
I found the simplest, dumbest thing. And since that day, I haven’t looked back toward my beloved.
It’s just this:
And now some crucial information.
First, I load up my glass with chewy ice.
And by the way, I use THESE as drinking glasses— they’re massive, so I drink more.
Next, I fill my glass with water, stopping about 2/3 of the way full.
Then I use THIS lovely straw.
Finally, I fill the remaining space in the glass with fresh, frosty, tart, sweet lemonade. Put it all together and you get a refreshing beverage that looks a little something like this:
Eagle-eyed maniacs will note that this is not, in fact, chewy ice, this is just regular ice. We are doing a little DIY on our laundry room (which is where our chewy ice maker lives) so for the moment I’m forced to use FREEZER ICE and pretend like everything’s fine. But let’s move on as if everything is.
Ok, so is the lemonade perfect in terms of ingredients? No. It has some sugar—though only 5 grams per serving as opposed to 28 grams in the regular Simply Lemonade—and it has Stevia. Now listen. If you’re reading this article, you are probably also drinking Diet Coke in which case you’re trying to cut down on aspartame so Stevia feels like success. Again, there’s mixed reports but overall Stevia extract, which is made from the leaves of the Stevia plant, is considered safe. If Stevia horrifies you, I doubt you’re even reading our site so I think I’ve equivocated enough?
Back to it.
I only use about half a cup of lemonade per serving (so that’s actually 2.5 grams of sugar and just 12.5 calories) in this massive glass:
Now, the next hurdle. It’s autumn and I’m talking about…lemonade?
Here’s how I see it.
Apart from the fact that I live in L.A. and we had a monthlong heatwave that meant we couldn’t “go outside” for fear of melting, I also want to assert the reason we are all addicted to Diet Coke:
It is unbelievably refreshing.
God, just writing that word makes my mouth water a little bit. And yes, I know many of us are just actually addicted to the caffeine part, but that’s almost a separate conversation. I’d recommend buying THIS and mixing it with THIS so you’re doing caffeine in a smart and effective way. And sure, most of us are also looking for a slicing, almost painful effervescence, and for that I say go HERE. But for a casual, multiple-times-a-day, refreshing, hits-the-spot drink that is so delicious you forget you’re actually drinking gallons and gallons of water, try my lemonade hack. I swear, Diet Coke will slowly but steadily become a thing of the past.
And you can regain your self-control in the home—and only order it in restaurants.
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
At The Candidly, we try a lot of stuff so you don’t have to. We only recommend things we truly love, and that we think you’ll love, too. All products are chosen independently by our creative team, and all details reflect the price and availability of products at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission.
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