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I lost 5 pounds in one week after quitting soda. Should I be concerned?

I'm a 25 year old male, 6'1". I stopped drinking soda a couple of weeks ago. I'm not down to only drinking water yet, but drinking stuff liek Gatorade or tea that still has sugar and calories, but MUCH less than soda does. In the week or so since Ive checked my weight last, Ive gone from 204 pounds to 199. I havent made many significant changes besides switching drinks and buying less sweets. I havent yet started real exercise, though I deliver pizzas so my job isnt totally sedentary. Should I be concerned about a weight loss like that, or is it likely just water and sugar weight?
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134578 tn?1693250592
I'd be proud of myself to have stopped the soda. A 12-ounce can is said to contain the equivalent of 12 teaspoons of sugar. Between the fluid, the sugar, and other stuff in the sodas (I think they are also surprisingly high in salt), it would not surprise me at all if you lost 5 lbs. just from cutting it from your diet. This would be especially true if you were not just drinking a little sip every now and then but instead were chugging a big one all the time. Good for you. Now just cut that Gatorade. lol
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It's not so much that Gatorade is BETTER, but it is easier to water down once I'm past the soda withdrawal, and it does contain about half the sugar in the short term. The end goal is almost entirely water with the occasional Gatorade or rare soda once I'm at the point where I can have a soda every couple of weeks without cravings coming back. I'm mainly trying to do a bit more gradual change than going straight from soda to nothing but water

(yes this is copy/paste but the explanation is the same for both answers :P
Avatar universal
I'm not sure Gatorade is any better than soda, or contains any less sugar.  I am sure that if you're going to drink soda, the sugar is probably less harmful than the artificially sweetened ones, but soda is bad for you on a lot of levels.  It has things other than sugar that are also bad for you.  But sugar, if not burned quickly, stores as fat, and if you consume less of it, you will lose weight.  And you have.  Calories aren't so much the concern as how quickly what you eat turns to sugar in the body for immediate burning as fuel, and if you don't use it quickly the body will store it as fat.  So good for you.
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It's not so much that Gatorade is BETTER, but it is easier to water down once I'm past the soda withdrawal, and it does contain about half the sugar in the short term. The end goal is almost entirely water with the occasional Gatorade or rare soda once I'm at the point where I can have a soda every couple of weeks without cravings coming back. I'm mainly trying to do a bit more gradual change than going straight from soda to nothing but water
I get it.  Soda is hard to stop.  My wife did for a long time and now is back on it, though she does diet Coke.  But there are a lot of beverages out there besides water -- green tea is great for you, and although it contains caffeine, it also contains a lot of antioxidants and relaxants that balance it in a way neither coffee nor soda is.  There are as many herbal teas as there are plants out there, though you do have to be careful about their medicinal effects.  In moderation, fruit juice, although high in sugar content, is a bit slower in getting absorbed that sucrose and has all those wonderful nutrients in them.  One glass a day won't hurt if you're exercising.  There are vegetable juices -- carrot juice is delicious, and the combos are endless.  Just to say, there a lot of good options out there if you don't just want to drink water.  I personally drink spring water, I get it delivered, because it tastes so much better than tap water.  I don't waste plastic because I get it in 5 gallon bottles that are returned and refilled.  Tap water can be pretty nasty tasting compared to real water.  Best of luck.
973741 tn?1342342773
I stopped soda which I call POP since I'm from the Midwest (ha) but found I also lost weight.  I don't think it was THAT fast but that is definitely one of those things that are needless calories.  So, Go with it.  Hydrate in other ways.  

I'm weird, I like tap water.  Until I gave up pop, I really didn't like water.  Once you give it up, a big glass of water may start to sound much more appealing.  

I also found that things tasted 'too sweet' after giving up pop.  Something I never thought **I** would say!
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In California where I grew up we called it sodapop.  So there you go.  Don't drink it myself, used to love root beer as a kid but as an adult it just makes me feel too full.  Not into carbonation, not even sparkling water.
Some tap waters taste pretty good - it depends on the source of the water and whether or not it's chock full of chlorine and/or other chemicals to "clean it up".  As one who made a living making drinking water safe, there are some tap waters I'll drink and some I won't.  I won't drink my own tap water because I've had my well tested and I know what's in it, but there are other tap waters I'll drink with no problems...

As for losing 5 lbs in a week just getting off soda (I'm from the midwest where it's called "pop", but live in the south where it's called soda...lol) doesn't surprise me, if one drinks a lot of them.  I've never been a large soda drinker, so getting off it didn't cause me to lose much weight (darn) but I've known others to lose large amounts just by giving up all that sugar.
Some tap water definitely tastes better than others -- New York City has always boasted about the taste of their water, which of course comes from far away.  But all tap water does have a lot of chemicals in it.  That's a good thing as far as chlorine is concerned, that's the most fundamental reason life span went up, when we switched to the modern sewage treatment from the disease fount it used to be.  But fluoride and chlorine are immune system suppressants and we also have developed an astoundingly large epidemic of immune system disorders from cancers to lupus to RA to Hashimoto's Disease to you name it.  Probably a combination if things contributed to this -- all the carcinogens we emit into our world so others can make more money, the multiple vaccinations we all get, the abuse of antibiotics by doctors and farmers, but no doubt drinking them in all day long has it's downsides.  Now, I've never had tap water that tastes as good as spring water that is disinfected through other means (and don't use it if it's from a state that requires reverse osmosis, that will make your water taste like nothing at all).  Most people today don't really notice that their water has no flavor.  I didn't notice until I fell into the health food biz and got to know the different water sources around me.  Some tasted good, some not so much, but they each had a distinct flavor.  Ever watch a dog drink in a creek?  They don't stand still, they roam, looking for the coolest, best tasting, moving water.  They like water. But they like some water better than other water.  They sample if you have an off-leash animal.  I recommend spring water for those who want to drink more water but say they don't like to drink it much.  I think it's the taste.  Give them really good tasting water and they'll have an easier time drinking more of it.  
"But all tap water does have a lot of chemicals in it."  No, that's not true... unless your tap water comes from a municipal system that uses chemicals for disinfection or other treatment, there may be minerals in it, but, historically, there are few "chemicals" in raw source water.  The exceptions have only recently (in the last few years) begun to surface and those are in areas close to waste treatment facilities, farming operations, etc into which people are flushing unused medications, etc.  Of course, when we take antibiotics and other medications, they do end up in our waste disposal systems, but for the most part the majority of that is filtered out by the time it reaches an aquifer.  

Chlorine, itself, is safe to use, as is fluoride as long as the water purveyor doesn't get carried away with the amounts.  That's why there are maximum levels they can maintain in the water...Fluoride is much less desirable than chlorine and IMO should be banned from being addeed to drinking water.  Chlorine also has an upper limit because it produces by-products, which now have to be monitored on a regular basis.

I, personally, have never lived in an area in which I've had to be on municipal water (i.e. I've always had my own well) so my water doesn't/has never had clorine or other chemicals yet I have 2 autoimmune conditions and both of my children have autoimmune conditions, one of them diagnosed when he was only 10 yrs old and never exposed to chemicals in drinking water  

The biggest reason I don't drink my own tap water is because I live in an area that used to be orange groves and when we first moved here the nitrate levels in the water was very high.  Over time it came down to within acceptable levels, but I still prefer not to drink it as my sole source.  We do use it for cooking and I use it for coffee, tea, etc.  Water coming from most Florida wells is the warmest cold water ever and not very pleasant to drink even if it tastes good.

To my knowledge there are no states that require reverse osmosis (RO) as the means for disinfecting water; that's very expensive and not cost effective on a large scale basis.  Often when water is treated using an RO method, some minerals are added back in after the treatment process to add some flavor back in since it's those minerals that give flavor to raw drinking water.
The chlorine and the flouride are chemicals, Barb.  They're inert gases, yes, they're minerals, but not in the form in which they're put in water.  These have been altered as are the minerals we take in supplements -- they have to be in order to be absorbed by the body.  But point taken -- I was definitely not suggesting our treated water is full of chemicals.  It might be -- see Flint Michigan and other poor non-white communities -- but it's usually not.  Adding chlorine was the greatest life-extender in human history, along with getting people to stop throwing their garbage in it and going to the bathroom in it.  I wouldn't want anyone to drink untreated water on a regular basis.   But you're missing the quantity point -- while it's true that no one glass of treated water will contain too much of either of these gases, people who rely on tap water are drinking them every day of their lives, over and over again.  It's a constant stream of it, not just one glass of water once in a while.  Now, something is going to have to be done to decontaminate our tap water, and the only two good solutions I've seen are chlorine and iodine, but iodine has problems as well.  Somebody probably knows more options than I do.  But fluoride only works well in children, it only works a little in adults, it helps produce brittle bones, and it's an immune system suppressant.  A better way to use it for teeth protection would be to paint it on or perhaps take it once in awhile in tablet form, as we did if you're old enough before they put in the tap water.  What I'm concerned about is the auto-immune system epidemic we have.  There are many potential culprits, fluoride and chlorine being only two.  Multiple vaccinations might be part of the problem, though I wouldn't suggest we avoid all of them ( I do avoid the ones that aren't really necessary for me, though they might become necessary at some point).  Pollution is part of the problem.  We have a lot of sources in a modern industrial society.  And you can't help all that pollution from getting into the tap water.  While safe limits are set by governments, they aren't actually proven to be safe -- it's just considered to be an acceptable risk for the benefit of having chlorine kill off bacteria.  I don't completely avoid tap water, but with spring water, because the companies who sell it are rather small compared to a water supply that has to supply everyone's taps, can be decontaminated with other means.  That's also why it tastes better -- chlorine has a definite smell and taste and it's not pleasant.  Too much and it's a toxic substance.  So to each their own.  And yes, some states require reverse osmosis for spring water.  Maryland used to be one of them when I sold water in health food stores, though I don't know if that's still the case.  It tasted -- well, tasteless.  I don't buy spring water from springs in Maryland for that reason.  Most states, including VA where I live, just require the water to test clean.  What I'm not arguing is that people be afraid of drinking tap water -- I'm not.  I just think it tastes awful compared to a good spring if you have one near where you live -- spring water doesn't travel all that well, like wine.  
Although there may be some instances in which some municipal water systems are required to use reverse osmosis to remove certain contaminants, I can't find a record of any state that requires the use of RO for basic disinfection, which is what the majority of municipal systems need.  Maryland does have some locations that have high arsenic levels and they use RO for its removal.  That's a whole different scenario than basic disinfection.   There are reasons why iodine is not used for basic water disinfection on a regular basis, though it can be used in emergency situations.

The majority of water systems do not get their water from springs - they come from wells dug/drilled deep into the ground.  Here in Florida we have an aquifer that runs underground and supplies a good share of the state.  Most of the aquifer is quite deep and by the time water (rain, treated wastewater, etc) gets to it, it's been filtered through the ground so it's quite pure.  We do have a lot of springs and there are bottling companies that draw water from some of them... They do purify that water via RO, but it's a pretty simple process because the water is good to start with.  Some other parts of the country get their water from lakes, rivers, etc, such as Flint, MI, which is an atrocity that should never have happened and is the exception, not the rule.

But you missed "my" whole point... I'm very well aware that chlorine and fluoride are chemicals; however, there are millions of people, including myself, that use private wells that do not require any type of treatment including chlorination or fluoridation.  Therefore, "not all tap water has chemicals", including chlorine and fluoride because we aren't required to chlorinate our water and even small public systems don't have to fluoridate their water...

We had our well drilled in 1993 and have been using it ever since then.  Because our property was, at one time, orange groves which were heavily fertilized for many years, nitrate levels were quite high when we first moved here, so we did not drink the water.  It was tested periodically, for nitrate/nitrite, as well as volatile organics and other chemicals that might have left residuals.  And because I'm a licensed water treatment operator, I also made sure it was tested for bacteria on a regular basis.  After a few years of using the well, the nitrate levels came down to almost nothing and the water is safe to drink so as I noted, we do use it for coffee, tea, cooking, etc but I don't use it for my primary drinking water; that's mostly because coming directly from the ground it's almost warm and not pleasant to drink.   Most people with private wells who aren't in the water treatment business as I am don't have the luxury of doing the testing I was able to get done because many labs won't take samples from private residents.  It just so happened that not only am I a licensed operator, I also worked for a water testing lab and worked closely with DEP and EPA, along with our Department of Health.

I totally agree that chlorine has a bad taste and smell, but if one has a good operator, the chlorine level need not be kept at such a high level as to be so repugnant... There is an upper limit for chlorine residuals that many operators tend to ignore on the premise that if a little chlorine is good, a lot is better... not true because of the disinfection by-products that are carcinogens.
You're still confused, Barb, about what I'm talking about.  I'm not talking about the large treatment systems, I'm talking about the required treatment for spring water -- bottled spring water.  All the major tap water systems use chlorine.
And well water is spring water, essentially, not a part of any major treatment for tap water.  Tap water comes from municipal treatment plants, all of which use chlorine, and for very good reason.  Wells are a very individual thing -- some are clean now, but filthy later.  Some were filthy before, but clean now.  Wells dry out and you have to dig a new one.  Not what I'm referring to.  I'm referring to water you buy on the market, either from your municipal water system, which is what comes out of the tap for most people, or bottled water, which isn't necessarily the little bottles of water you buy and carry around with you, most of which is just tap water put in a bottle and sold as if it were something better.  I buy spring water in 5 gallon bottles, delivered to my home but some old time health food stores still sell them (I say this because a lot of people who are buying those large bottles at their health food stores are just buying filtered tap water nowadays, not spring water).  They're pretty heavy, so if you can't lift them, you can't use them.  You need something at home to either dispense them (those old things you still see in some places where you place the bottle upside down and you get it from a spigot, but again, most of these nowadays don't use spring water, they're just buying water from the municipal system and filtering it) or a rocker which is what I have, you just put the bottle in it and rock it forward to fill a smaller bottle we keep in our fridge.  Not everyone can get true local spring water -- I'm lucky, I can.  Some places have no clean springs left.  Some never had them.  Some have been drained.  Most have been bought up by companies like Deer Park, which while it might be spring water you're buying, you have no idea where it comes from.  Virginia for some reason has a lot of really good springs -- I guess it's because it gets a lot of rain, gets run-off from the Appalachians, has a lot of underground caverns, and isn't an industrial state with a long history of pollution.  But I also lived in California for much of my early life, and there are virtually no springs there.  They do have aquifers, but those are very large and spoken for.  There is one old good spring water company near Big Sur, and some others, but it's a dry state in the south where I grew up and we're lucky to have water at all.  It's all spoken for, and divvied up for agriculture, industrial use, and municipal systems.  When there's little rain, there's not a lot of spring water left to use.  The best spring water I ever had was from a small spring in rural Virginia not far from where Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison used to hang out and live, but the owner fouled it when he lost his rights to the land.  They are easy to foul.  So again, for people who want to drink more water but just don't care for it that much, my little suggestion here is that they try spring water because it tastes better.  For everyone else, if you like tap water, drink away -- it might indeed harm you, but so might spring water if it gets fouled and you don't know it right away.  All life is risk.  But soda or sodapop or pop is really really bad for you because of the phosphorus and the caffeine if it has that and the sugar if it has that and the synthetic sweeteners if it has that and the uppers if it has that -- diet Coke has phenylalinine in it, look it up, folks.  My wife drinks it, but as an anxiety sufferer, it wouldn't be a good thing for me to drink.  And it's hidden on the label in the corner, she had no idea it was in there until I saw it when I was wondering what the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke was.  But there are more natural sodas sold in health food stores, though I can't say they taste great.  Also, chlorine is spiked when there's a problem -- you'll smell in your shower when that happens.  But again, and finally, if I were making the cost-benefit analysis I would allow chlorine for tap water, and there's not enough spring water for everyone to drink.  It would run out quickly.  Remember, folks, no matter what docs and pharma tell you, the single most important factor in living longer is decontaminating the water you drink.  The second most important factor is available nutritious food.  All those medical advances account for a tiny percentage of the reason we're living longer.  Peace, all.  
649848 tn?1534633700
COMMUNITY LEADER
I think you're the one that got confused... I came into the conversation, commenting on tap water and you're the one who said "But all tap water does have a lot of chemicals in it." which is what started the conversation.
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Let's not flog a dead horse here.  I started my comment by just offering an alternative to someone trying to quit soda by suggesting spring water if they didn't like water.  You came in with the tap water and said it's good if it doesn't have a lot of chlorine and chemicals in it.  I responded, still only trying to help the poster find a good tasting refreshing beverage to replace soda.  Again, lets stop beating this poor horse, it's dead already.  Peace, Barb.
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