Giving Up Diet Soda Again

I've had a wallop of a winter this year. It's been quite cloudy, rainy, and humid. For me, that means lots of vertigo and off balance challenges. My husband also fell at work last December and splattered one of his thumb tendons, went through surgery to correct the problem, but the doctors still cannot figure out what is wrong with his wrist.

His schedule has been a bit twisted this past winter as well. He's been doing graveyard, which was extremely difficult, but has now moved back to a daytime schedule.

While doing graveyard, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get completely off of Melatonin. I've been cutting down on the amount I've been using ever since I watched a youtube video last year that talked about the possibility of having to use it for the rest of your life. I didn't like the sound of that, so when my hubby went onto a graveyard schedule, I thought it was the perfect time to completely quit.

Since I now have that under control, my next step is to try and give up diet sodas again. Since I react violently to all sugar substitutes, I don't really know WHY I haven't been reacting to the diet Coke or Dr. Pepper that I've been drinking, but whatever the reason, the time has come to try to completely chuck the aspartame -- once again.

There have been several times in my life when I have tried to completely give up aspartame. The first time was shortly after I was diagnosed with vestibular dysfunction. Since dizziness is often listed as a symptom of aspartame poisoning, I stopped drinking the diet Dr. Pepper in hopes of reversing what was wrong with me. After two years, the vertigo was as strong as it ever was and my health problems were no better, (I didn't know that I had celiac disease and possible gluten ataxia back then), so I simply went back to them.

The next time I tried to quit was when I was following a zero-carb diet. At that time, I was a cook in a boys home, and giving up the sodas made the vertigo worse. So bad, in fact, that I had to choose between the diet sodas and my job. I decided to go back to drinking the sodas. I needed my job.

I also did a short 6-week abstinence when I was doing a round of hHCG. By that time, I was writing online rather than working outside of the home, but giving up the soda was pure hell. I was really addicted to the bubbly stuff, I realized that then, so I went right back to them once that diet was over. I didn't see a need to give them up. Plus, I didn't want to gain back the weight I'd lost.

However, I gained it back anyway, (the amount I'd lost doing hHCG), despite the diet sodas and sugar substitutes. A standard low-carb diet simply packed back on the pounds for me. At that time, I realized that reaching my 125 pound goal wasn't realistic. 160 pounds is far easier to maintain.

Since then, I've tried to cut down on diet soda more slowly. But that didn't work well either. I would get down to about a liter of diet soda per day, and then the vertigo would come whirling back. Since then, I've gone off all sugar substitutes. I did that when I was reacting to corn. I switched from diet Dr. Pepper to Dr. Coke because it tasted like it contained less corn than the other. 

Even though I'm able to tolerate a little bit of corn again, I know that diet sodas aren't good for me.

My thought is that maybe going the slower route wasn't working well because I was still poisoning my body with Splenda and Erythritol. Since I've cut those things completely out of my life now, I think it's time to try and give up the diet sodas again.