Diet Coke Quitter Transforms

A story about how Kara Goldin transformed her health by quitting diet soda and switching to water.

"I started keeping a diary of everything I was eating, though I didn't even count my diet soda consumption because I didn't think of it as food. One day I looked at the label on Diet Coke and realized how many ingredients it had that I didn't understand. I decided to put it aside and swap my diet sodas for plain water.

Things started getting better - my energy levels came back, my skin improved, and I was losing weight. The first two and a half weeks were pretty dismal, felt like I had a bad case of the flu. Looking back, I realize it was detox from the Splenda and NutraSweet. But I had lost 24 pounds in those two and a half weeks.

After six months passed, I kept losing weight. My skin continued to stay great and my energy level was great. By that time, I had lost 55 pounds - back to my college weight. People would see me and ask if I was okay because the transformation was so dramatic. They'd ask what diet I was on, and I'd tell them I wasn't really on a diet - I just stopped drinking diet soda.

That's when I realized I was educating so many people about my experience. It was an epiphany that I had been marketed to and told something was better for me just because it had the word 'diet' on it."