Breaking Up is Hard to Do (A Guest Post from Angie Best-Boss)

No client information is ever shared and confidentiality is highly protected and valued. In this case, my new client, Angie, has volunteered to provide a blog entry for the Thriving Lifestyle community. Please support & encourage Angie during her journey. :)

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When it’s time for a relationship to be over, you know.  The signs are all there.  The broken promises, the disappointments, the back and forth pull between what you know is right and what your heart wants. 

I’ve had a love affair with Diet Coke for as long as I remember.  A 2 liter a day or 8-10 cans a day is not unusual for me. And for a while, I’ve worn my addiction with pride.  It’s just one of my little quirks.  Skip the Starbucks baby, I’ve got my nectar of the gods in this sweet little can o’ artifically colored and flavored aspartame.

But I knew it couldn’t last.  

There have been warning signs along the way.  Like the day there was a small fire outside of my office and a colleague tried to take my Diet Coke to douse the flames.  I clutched my soda, wild-eyed, saying something along the lines of “I don’t care if the entire building burns to ashes, you’re not touching my Diet Coke.” 

Sadly, I wish that were an exaggeration to make a point. A little bit of lighthearted literary license.  It’s not.

Except now I’m starting to rethink this whole thing.  For a couple of reasons, really.  For one, my five and nine year olds have taken to stealing sips when they think I’m not looking.  Apparently the whole “Do as I say and not as I do” is not an effective parenting technique.

And while I’ve been reluctant to actually look at the real dangers of what I’m guzzling (we’ll ignore the environmental impact for now), research clearly shows connections between aspartame and depression, fatigue, weight gain, lupus, osteoporosis and teeth problems.  Sigh.

Since I started working with Karla, I’ve committed to making baby steps to have a healthier lifestyle.  One of my goals is to let go of my addiction to Diet Coke.   It’s a process, and right now it involves switching a few drinks a day over to Zevia, a more natural carbonated drink without the artificial sweetener.  I’m not paid to promote it, I promise, and the taste isn’t exactly the same, but it’s satisfying enough.  Plus, there's the whole giving up the toxic-chemicals-that-could-kill-me thing.

(http://www.zevia.com)

Yesterday’s count?  3 Diet Cokes, 3 Zevias.

And today – haven’t had a Diet Coke yet and I'm loving my Dr. Zevia.

Look, I know it’s not exactly pomegranate juice, but it’s a baby step.

And, if you happen to see me with a Diet Coke in my hand, snatch it please!