Goodbye, old friend

If you ever ask my dad, he will tell you that the first 12 years of my life, I was a Coke addict. Every meal that we had out, I had to, no I demanded that I had a glass of Coke to go with the meal. Needless to say, I was a snotty little brat.

I eventually grew out of it, but I still enjoy drinking Coke quite often.

Until yesterday.

I've been steadily trying to cut out pop drinking in general to reduce my sugar intake. The last couple of months, I had managed to cut out any sort of artificial sweetener from the diet, the stuff's just nasty for the body. The next goal was to cut down on the pop drinking.

Now, I had rationalized that I would still drink pop once in a while. After all there is sometimes a limited choice sometimes when you go to a friend's place for dinner or a social outing. I don't drink coffee (can't stand the smell) or tea (hot or cold, and will only make an exception in Chinese restaurants). So that usually leaves pop, and sometimes juice or water.

Yesterday, I bowed to my McDonald's craving and bought a sandwich and fries for lunch. The Coke I had, was from our little office mini-bar fridge, where there is a steady supply of Coke cans, thanks to one of my co-workers.

About an hour after lunch, I experienced the crash from the sugar high (and probably the caffeine too), big time. I have experienced these crashes before, but never quite like this. I felt dizzy, listless, out of sorts, tired. And really gross. However, I desperately wanted to open up another can of Coke to go back to my previous high. This feeling got me really worried. Apparently, my body doesn't handle certain substances the same way as before.

I did prevail however, and didn't succumb to the little devil sitting on my shoulder. I was planning on going to the gym after work, and didn't want to risk another sugar crash when I was there. I did go to the gym, but couldn't shake the icky feeling I had since I had the sugar crash. And so I had a crappy workout.

Now, I'm swearing off pop, and in particular Coke, for as long as I can. I certainly can't avoid it completely, but if there is an option that is not coffee, tea or pop, I may take up the alternate instead.

This is a real bummer, since I still love Coke.