My name is Jennifer, and I'm a Pepsi-holic. I don't remember when I started drinking Pepsi, exactly. I know we didn't really have pop in the house when I was kid, so it must have been sometime in college--probably in the dorm, when I had free access to the cafeteria pop machine for meals and a convenient vending machine after hours. I know I was buying Pepsi in glass bottles when I was living in an apartment off campus, at any rate. (Ah, Pepsi in glass bottles! It doesn't taste nearly as good in plastic bottles, and I've never liked cans.)
So that's nearly 20 years that Pepsi has been my primary source of hydration. (Scary thought, though the 20 years is the worst part of it to me!) I've tried to quit a few times, but was never really successful. Part of the problems is that I don't like much else to drink--I can't stand diet pop, except Diet 7-Up sometimes, and I'm one of those weird people who doesn't like the taste of water. (Yes, there is a taste, regardless of what they try to tell you.)
Finally, at the beginning of August 2009, I ran out of Pepsi and was busy in the house all day, so I didn't get a chance to go out and buy some more. By the time I was out running errands, it had been a full 24 hours since I'd last had any Pepsi, and I figured if I'd gone that long I might as well just quit drinking it. For nine weeks, I had zero cola of any kind. I drank mostly iced tea, which is what I remember drinking as a kid. Finally one night we went out to dinner, and I had a pop (and yes, it was delicious!).
It was never my intention to stop drinking Pepsi entirely, forever. I wanted to do a solid stretch of total abstinence to start, so that I could fully break the addiction, but then I wanted to be able to have it here and there. (I've never done well with deprivation diets; they just make me want whatever it is I can't have all the more.) So I had pop when we went out to eat, or occasionally on the weekends if I was going to be away from home for several hours.
Fast forward to June of this year, when I got swamped with Michigan Boxer Club stuff for the July 9 Specialty show. I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, so decided that I'd have a Pepsi if I got fewer than six hours of sleep the night before. (You can see the rationalizations starting here.) From there I pretty well fell off the wagon; I haven't yet bought an eight-pack of Pepsi to have at home or at work, but I've been gradually drinking more and more Pepsi these days. (It doesn't help that my boss now stocks the work fridge with cans--which has shown me how desperate I've become, since I drink those cans even though I always hated them before.)
Still, I made it 10.5 months with only minimal Pepsi intake. Clearly, I can survive without it! I need to quit it again; not only because it's a lot of calories to drink every day, but also because I really do feel healthier when I'm not constantly drinking Pepsi. Now that I'm basically back on it, I feel thirsty and dehydrated all the time, surprisingly more tired than before, and my "close to meal time" nausea is back, as is my acid reflux. I'm actually pretty surprised at how much worse I feel now that I've been drinking pop again; I didn't notice a major improvement when I quit but looking back, I did feel much better. So I'm quitting again. My stressful summer-fall is over (MBC shows, potential breedings, a five-day, 1,600 mile road trip) so now I don't have any excuses not to. ;) Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment