Five Viable Soda Replacements That Don’t Suck

With losing weight being a marathon goal composed of several habits, one of the easiest fixes to go after is the replacement or outright elimination of soda and sugary drinks from the diet. As a former soda addict myself (Sometimes drinking a 12-pack in a single day) I understand how difficult it can be to find a viable replacement for the staple taste of a fizzy drink. Each can of soda comes in at around 200 calories, and with how sweet they taste drinking more than one is real easy to do. Just 2 or 3 a day adds 380 to 570 calories to your daily intake, which is around 20% of daily needed calories for most people. Removing or substituting this part of your diet is one of the most effective things to do to speed up weight loss. Today I will be going over the 5 drinks I’ve used to keep soda out of my life for good.

1. Carbonated Water.
   1. This is the easiest one, it’s plain old water but with fizz to make it resemble soda. Keeping these stocked in the refrigerator will help easily displace the calories from drinking carbonated syrup, and comes in flavored and canned variants for all preferences. Each water tastes slightly different because of their mineral profiles, so don’t be afraid to try as many as you need to find the one that you like. All of them are zero calories so there’s no worries! (Just don’t drink carbonated drinks while working out, trust me).
2. Unsweetened Tea
   1. While not as enticing as it’s sugar-loaded cousin, unsweetened tea makes another great substitute for soda and without being as plain or boring as regular water. A lot of bottled teas you see are usually black or green tea, which have beneficial anti-oxidants. You can also brew a jug of your own tea at home and pour it into containers. This way is cheaper and gives you a much bigger variety of flavors since it’s mainly black and green teas found bottled on shelves compared to herbal teas.
3. Kombucha Tea
   1. My personal favorite, kombucha is a fermented fizzy tea that is brewed in glass bottles or aluminum cans. It’s sugar contents are low but combined with the acidity from fermentation give this drink an interesting texture and flavor similar to soda but without all the syrup and other questionable ingredients. Kombucha is brewed with the sugar of various fruits to help with the fermentation process and comes in a variety of flavors. The only drawback with kombucha is that it’s expensive to buy in glass bottles, but it is possible to brew and carbonate it yourself at home. Be careful of which kind you buy and at what time of the day that you drink it; several kombucha teas are brewed with black or green tea as a base ingredient. Be sure not to drink these late in the day so you don’t mess up your sleep.
4. Iced Coffee

For those of you who specifically enjoy the caffeine part of soda, coffee WITHOUT loads of syrups and sugar packets can be an acceptable drink to displace soda. Ice it and use a low calorie creamer like almond milk and you got a cool drink that will put pep back in your step. Coffee when consumed black has zero calories and the caffeine will lower your appetite which can be used strategically during the day when your hunger tends to be the highest.

• 5. Vegetable Juices

Vegetables are certainly not the most romantic part of a diet, but when made into a juice it can make getting the daily fill of them easier. The trick with vegetables or any juice at all is to be mindful of what sort of vegetables are being used for the juice. A lot of times vegetable juices are blended with fruit juices to make them more sweet and palatable. So while you may be drinking something technically less sugary than soda, having oranges, cherries, or mangoes can really quickly shoot the sugar content of the drink way past a can of soda. Good blends use low sugar produce such as kale, granny smith apples, lemon, cucumber, and ginger. It’s generally smarter to eat your calories than to drink them for the satiation from the fiber, but in moderated amounts juices can be acceptable.

There are other drinks out there but these are the only kinds I can recommend with a clean conscious to people. The danger of drinking calories is not to be underestimated, cutting out calorie rich beverages will very quickly lower your daily intake and make your weight loss goals much easier.

If you need help with getting started on your journey check out my store page. You can sign up for my Facebook group or book a call with me!

Don’t give up, honor your gift

-Ed