Anyone who knows me can tell you that I can be seen each morning starting my day with a Low Carb Monster energy drink and will be spotted with various diet sodas throughout the day. I am a diet soda fiend of sorts, consuming at least 32oz. of diet soda plus a 16oz. energy drink each day… and that is on a light day. Other days, I may start out with a 44oz. fountain soda and move on to cans when I’m at work. It has been an addiction of sorts, no doubt about that and even more so it is a red flag to the kind of over-indulgent behavior that has no doubt led to my obesity.

Yesterday, the world heard the news that artificial sweeteners have been linked to over-eating and difficulty losing weight. Apparently the pseudo-sugars are more likely to cause over-eating and long term insulin release then regular table sugar. That is frightening considering almost every diet product on the market uses one kind of sweetener or another. Is it true? Well it would appear it is in laboratory rats anyway and that is good enough for me. After my non-loss last week, I’m abandoning my energy drinks and diet sodas for water. Not flavored water, no branded sports water… just plain old water.

One thing that drinking all of that diet soda has done to me is decreased the amount of water I drink to next to none. We all know from every weight loss program we have ever been on that drinking lots of water is one of the keys to success! So, I will stop on my way in to work and get a half-gallon jug of water to get me through my day. I have no delusions of what the sudden loss of caffeine is going to feel like, but I am determined to stay on the Medifast Program and get this weight off once and for all. Suffering some caffeine headaches and going without are part of the process, after all it is my over-indulgence that got me here in the first place so it will become an important part of my lifestyle change to do away with things that I know will just eventually lead me back down the path to failure.