Sugar Turned On Me

I know how I got where I am. It was because I was up to three bottles a day. Maybe with one poured from the tap with lunch, too. I’m talking about a beverage that is a problem for many otherwise normal Americans and one to which they are not quick to admit.

Soda.

Drink is as important to food to one’s diet. Maybe more so, as after all, not everyone has a steak at their desk but they do have something to sip on. Soda is an easy choice because it tastes good, is relatively cheap and easily obtainable. Sure, there are other options in the vending machine, but most people grab a Coke or Pepsi before they even look at as bottled green tea.

I had the last Dr. Pepper I expect to ever have the Friday while I was waiting to get my first A1C results back after the weekend. I thought I was going to miss it. It was the only thing still regularly in my diet for which I was willing to overlook high fructose corn syrup . It was like a comfort food I got to have every day.

Knowing that it was one of the most likely culprits in my acquisition of diabetes, however, did take some of the sting out of having to give it up. The only problem then became… what do I drink?

After trial and error I got used to the following options:

• Water -  If we’re 90% made up of it, it can’t be a bad thing. I have never really been accustomed to drinking water as my primary source of hydration, but after a few days I got used to the lack of taste and started craving it. I prefer to use the water cooler or the filtered pitcher at home to lots of bottles (for environmental reasons) but it’s now my safe default.
• Tea - If you can get the taste for unsweetened tea, more power to you. I usually carry around packets of stevia with me. The advantages to tea are that it’s usually available in restaurants, has a bit of caffine (if you’re fond of it like I am) and is really cheap to make at home.
• Vitamin Water- Recently maligned for it’s sugar content, I still think it’s a good thing in moderation. Both Sobe and Glaceau brands use real sugar instead of HFCS and it does have vitamins. The thing I try to remember is that while one 20 oz. bottle has about 2/3 the sugar of a 20 oz. cola, it still is a sugary beverage and might be fine to sip on all day but not guzzled down two at a time.
• Juice - Most of what I said about vitamin water applies to 100% juices. Watch the sugar content, consume in moderation but still keep in the fridge. I need to start experimenting with thinning grape juice with water. The thing I look for is that it’s real juice and not a juice flavored beverage and that it has some real vitamin content.
• SODA!- There are a number of good diet sodas that meet the needs of even the most discriminating diabetic. I personally avoid the big name labels and get my supply from the local hippie grocery which stocks Virgil’s Diet (flavored with xylitol and stevia) or Steaz diet fruit/green tea sodas (which use real sugar, just not very much). If used in moderation, as they still are no replacement for water, they satisfy the craving for something bubbly quite nicely.

It’s nice to have options. After all, even though I’ve avoiding sugar… it’s still nice to have a cold one now and again.