I Didn't Drink Soda for 47 Days, And Here's What Happened...

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

This year I decided to give up soda for Lent. It was a difficult decision to come to as I drink a lot of soda. Coca Cola, mostly, but I enjoy a strawberry Fanta every now and then (particularly when it's late at night and I don't want the caffeine to keep me awake). But because I drink a lot of soda, I figured it'd be a good thing to give up as it's supposed to be a sacrifice and not drinking Coca Cola for 47 days was definitely going to be a sacrifice for me. I did have a loophole, where if my stomach was hurting, I was allowed to drink ginger ale (which I refer to as "tummy juice"), but only if my stomach was hurting and I couldn't use it as an excuse just because I wanted some soda!

I was successful at not drinking Coca Cola for 47 days and I'm very proud of myself for doing that. I did drink some tummy juice the two times my stomach wasn't feeling well during Lent, but that was maybe a can and a half because I shared with Lainee one time. And I was legitimately having a tummy ache both times. So, all in all, I consider it a success.

Let me tell you why I'm saying that nothing happened.

I often hear that if I stop drinking soda I'll lose weight - but I didn't. Maybe it wasn't enough time to make a difference, but I didn't see any major weight loss and that's okay with me. I am just writing this to note the fact that solely giving up soda was not going to result in me losing weight if I didn't do any other changes to my lifestyle which, of course, I didn't. I still drank alcohol - and possibly more since this COVID-19 quarantine! I still ate the foods I always eat - except no meat on Fridays! I still snacked - and let me tell you, my snacks are not the healthiest!

Another thing I thought would be affected by the lack of soda was my resting heart rate as it always goes down when I temporarily go on the wagon. However, looking at my FitBit heart rate data, my average RHR on the week of February 26th is exactly the same average RHR as this past week. So, no change there either. I gotta say I was a little surprised at that, but again, I didn't make any other changes to my lifestyle so maybe that's also why there was no change in my RHR.

So, should you give up soda? I don't know. I know I'm not! I am definitely not going to drink as much of it, but I'm still going to have it every now and then whenever the craving strikes (which - if I'm being honest, at the beginning of Lent I craved it a lot), but now that Lent is over, the cravings have definitely diminished.

I hope this serves as a reminder to myself that everything in moderation is better than completely cutting out something - like soda! - for when I'm trying to lose weight. But at least my sacrifice for Lent was a success, and I lived to tell the tale!