I was in the mood for a soda.
I’ve been avoiding it for a while, though by no means have I cut it out entirely like last time. Today I had a headache and I felt weak. So, naturally, I figured a soda was the panacea for my woes. (Couldn’t possibly be my eating disorder, right? Sigh.)
I walked across the street to the Walgreens, grabbed a soda and a bottle of Tylenol – both of which I opened and consumed during the checkout process.
I will admit, I DO have a habit of double checking the bottle to insure I grabbed the Diet — (especially when it comes to Fresca which does not have the Diet label).
However, not until I walked outside did I realize I grabbed (and consumed several sips of):
Dun, Dun, Dun.
20 calories of High Fructose Corn Syrup and chemicals.
It should be noted I did not:
a) Immediately throw the bottle away and obsess about this “transgression.”
or
b) Worry about it much at all.
I finished the bottle. I don’t know why. I don’t care why. It wasn’t a challenge or a fear I conquered.
It just….was.
It was a freaking soda. That’s it. Ends there.
My lack of reaction was foreign to me. Yes, I am still thinking about it – but more in wonderment than pride.
- If you’ve ever been caught up in the pursuit of “clean eating” or health…has anything similar ever happen to you?
Ps- It should be noted I still think HFCS is a very. bad. thing. But HFCS happens. Could be worse.
my sister got into a fight with the mcdonalds lady @ midway airport last week because her “diet” coke was pre-poured and sitting on the counter (clearly for efficiency purposes). my sister insisted on observing the “pour.” little do most people realise, but the gooney teenager in the back could very easily connect the “regular” syrup to the “diet” dispenser. and voila!
you know how i am about these sorts of things. but i never ever obsess about the calories or sugar in wine. go figure! glad you prevailed like a champion on this one. 
xx
Fountain Soda makes me so Uneasy….LOL.
Wine sugar is fine by me, too. It’s natural. And delicious. But I have to drink it with food or I get loopsy.
Is it bad that I just grinned goofily for you?
Lack of reaction is sometimes the best reaction to have (and I just mean it probably feels good to you, like often it does to me, when you’re like… “Uh, oh right, it just DOESN’T MATTER.”
So I’m smiling.
exactly.
I am changing organically and I owe that to God. That SO would not have happened a year or two ago.
I just don’t care.
God works well organically.
i did that with greek yogurt once, but thats how i got hooked on full fat greek yogurt. Made me feel so much better physically. haha, guess that worked out.
They say once you go fat, you never go back.
I have still yet to try it. It’s not that fat that concerns me —it’s just that the full fat has more calories.
What is 20 calorie soda? Seems weird considering I only know of either Diet and calorie-free or the real sugar laden stuff.
I admit I’m not a soda/carbonated beverages drinker- diet or regular (though if i had to I would probably choose the diet anyways since I don’t even like soda enough to waste that much sugar/calories when I can have something I actually like instead…like cheesecake).
However, I do love my champagne and wine…and like someone noted above I could care less about the amount of suga in my riesling
I am convinced God created it and put it in the Walgreens to show me something. LOL. I Kid.
Seriously though — I bet the HFCS manufacturers are getting ansy — their sales may havve dropped and they are trying to get their produt out their in a more “palatable” and PC fashion.
Nice work
I had a diet soda last night. I don’t normally drink soda, and it made me feel terrible! Will be avoiding it from now on.
It really is wicked stuff.
Really happy for you! And guess what – the sky is still firmly where it should be
Yup, been there with the suspiciousness of soda (we call it soft drink here) and whether it’s the ‘right’ one and not the… ‘other’ one..
I did used to just freak out, feel like that sky was falling etc, if I’d had even a taste of something that was not what it was meant to be, even if I’d spat it out. Disaster! End of the world!
I got a reality check one year though. I’d spent 18 months chowing down on the same 100g pack of mung bean vermicelli every day. It was my only ‘safe’ form of carbs and I loved carbs, so I missed them so much. To find this stuff had been amazing for me, a miracle. The packet reckoned they had about 300 and something Kilojoules per 100 grams (most packaging is in kilojoules in Australia). I knew that this was about um… exactly 4.2 times less than 100g of noodles usually is – (how could I not have gone ‘aha’?) … I told myself it must be cause it was made of mung beans. “Beans,” I thought, “They have to be much less than the usual stuff”.
Duh.
The overseas company that was importing them here to AUS upgraded it’s packaging to correct the mistake – now it said 300 -something CALORIES per 100g. I FREAKED.
But the good thing?
I had eaten 4.2 times more than I’d thought i was for 18 months and I had not gained weight at all. That really brought home to me that my rigidity was perhaps a bit.. silly and unwarranted
Again, really proud of you. Everytime you manage to do something like this,you prove to yourself it’s OK. xx
What a story!
It’s so funny how “far” we can come, but yet still have so far to go though.
At least it wasn’t a full calorie soda, I guess you can look at it like that. I remember accidentally buying 2% Greek yogurt once and procrastinating eating it so bad. I haven’t had any soda in a really long time though, I feel better without it too! But like you, I do get a little freaked out about it in restaurants and fountains because I’m scared they might give me the regular variety without realizing it or something, if I don’t see them (I’m the same way with skinny coffee).
I do drink a lot of coffee and have gotten to the point where I even use creamer in it (yeah, before I only drank it black…).
There would be no way I’d have finished a full calories soda and I probably would have flipped over the two sip (0:
Amazing how you did not allow your ED thoughts triumph over your decision to finish the soda bottle.
I’m proud of you.
Yes, HFC is bad. But then again, everything is either: a) Illegal, B) Fattening, C) Immortal, D) Expensive, or E) Addicting. Life is too short to obsess over one bottle of soda from time to time.
I do catch myself getting something “unhealthy” or goes against my ED standard of eating and I’m getting better with dealing with my disordered thinking or reaction to them. I can’t think of a specific example right now…it’s still too early for me to function in the morning.
XX
I really didn’t have any ED thoughts. I thought about it for a fraction of a second. It was weird.
Way to go! I definitely double/triple check food, making sure it’s the fat-free, low-cal or whatever version that I deem “better”.
Katie : )
I’ve gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to double check a label.
Labels are controlling little monsters. Gah
I had a similar instance with cottage cheese… I have a thing about sodium, so when I came home and realized I had bought regular cottage cheese instead of the “no salt added” kind, I had a minor freak out. But I did eat it…eventually.
Congrats on not letting your little snafu get you down!
Gosh, I can relate to that! And I’ve been craving cottage cheese incidentally. Why’d you have to go and bring it up? LOL.
I am so glad that you went ahead and drank this. 20 calories=no difference whatsoever. But in the fight against ED, it’s a great accomplishment
I am so proud of you!
Have a great Monday!
Scott
I remember being 18 years old and so very impressionable. I started to eat a vegan diet because one of my close friends did. We were at Whole Foods one day for lunch eating tofu or some sh*t (sorry, I hate tofu), and we asked for mashed potatoes from the hot bar. The man told us they were vegan. In no way were they vegan, but we ate them anyway. Random story – ha.
Glad you just had a “it is what it is” moment and moved on with your day! That’s sort of a big deal.
Aren’t those “meh” moments great? Glad it didn’t hamper you.
while i dont drink soda, i do double..tripple check the labels to make sure their diet.
Major kudos to you for not freaking out! I probably would have gone into a hissy fit.
your body DESPERATELY NEEDS CALORIES right now, even those from HFCS!