Cold Turkey

[bjarvis]

I decided recently that I was drinking entirely too much Coke Classic.

There is a vending machine at my office and it was fairly common for me to start my day with a 20 oz bottle; on particularly difficult days, I might have another in the late afternoon. I didn't think too much about how much I was consuming or spending on soft drinks in general.

In the past couple of months, Coca-Cola has had yet another promotion in progress. One in 12 bottle caps offers a free 20 oz Coke as a prize, among other things. Occasionally, I would get such a lucky bottle cap. There isn't a convenience store near my office so I would lob these caps into an otherwise empty drawer for safe-keeping. About three weeks ago, however, I noticed that I now had 23 such winning bottle caps. If the distribution is indeed 1 in 12, I had to have consumed 276 bottles of Coke since the start of the promotion in July.

This can't be a good thing.

I now keep a case of 10 oz bottles of apple juice in my filing cabinet and have been polishing off about two per day. Yes, there's still a lot of sugar in those bottles, but it's about 1/3 of my former soft drink sugar intake. I've lost 8lbs and a little width around the middle. Even my anticipated caffeine withdrawal bitchiness didn't manifest.

And as of last Friday, Coca-Cola Enterprises had lost 6.3% of its share value.

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

CCE is a bottler, while KO is The Coca Cola Company, which has a market cap 10x as much. In which case you single-handedly cost shareholders $6 billion! Wow, you're impressive.

I commend the habit change, in any case. I've reserved the domain name HABITENGINEERING.COM for a business plan I have. Cutting empty sugar calories further by moving to flavored mineral water or the like would do you even more good -- your teeth and your body fat percentage thank you. :-)

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

In which case you single-handedly cost shareholders $6 billion! Wow, you're impressive.

Cool! To think my parents feared their kids wouldn't amount to anything... ha!

I shall next demonstrate my newly discovered economic influence by crushing the hopes & dreams of Comcast shareholders. :-)

[excessor.livejournal.com]

Coffee has been very very good to me. If you're looking to build up a new addiction, I'd suggest a coffee-based one. Every day, Juan Valdez and I become One as I prey at the Altar of the Sacred French Roast.

We love new members.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Never really liked the flavour of coffee... just can't get into it. I still retain my chocolate addiction, however.

The way I see it, it is incumbent upon us all to consume all the chocolate we can to help cocoa-exporting nations reduce their international debt. It's not just food of the gods: it's good international relations.

[rticboy.livejournal.com]

I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I've switched to almost all water that I drink now and still haven't lost any weight. Grrrrrrrrr!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I suspect the problem is your new Jeep. For your own health and wellbeing, I recommend you sign the title over to me at your earliest convenience. (Do keep up the payments though... thanks!) :-)

[rticboy.livejournal.com]

hahaha

:P

so there!

[ruggedbear.livejournal.com]

"Even my anticipated caffeine withdrawal bitchiness didn't manifest."

Hmm, think I'll talk to Kent about that and get the REAL story. Though I think the bigger problem was all the corn syrup you were ingesting - not that the caffeine was all that good for you either! So does this mean you'll be slowing down a little and getting back to human speed?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

So does this mean you'll be slowing down a little and getting back to human speed?

Hell, no! It means I can move a little faster longer since I don't have to deal with the periodic sugar crash/cratering after a particularly heavy binge. :-)

[madknits.livejournal.com]

"Even my anticipated caffeine withdrawal bitchiness didn't manifest.

I'm so jealous. When I gave up coke 10 years ago, I was in the middle of writing my master's thesis. The headache felt like a band of iron was being tightened around my head.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's typically what has happened in the past. I have no idea how I've dodged that particular bullet this time but I'm grateful.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I think these things change over time. I've had what I think of as a mild caffeine addiction for most of my adult life: I onlyh have one (or at most two) cups of coffee with breakfast, and I'm fine for a day. I noticed a long time ago that if I didn't have that one cup within about two hours of getting up, I would get a nasty headache, which would go away once I did consume some caffeine.

But in recent years I've had a few occasions when, for one reason or another (when not at home, of course) my coffee intake has been consdierably delayed, and I haven't had the "caffeine headache". So maybe I'm not as addicted as I thought.

This suggests that I could give up that morning cup if I wanted to. But I like coffee, so I'm going to keep drinking it.