In the Blogs: I Tried to Quit Diet Soda Four Times. Here's What FinallyChanged My Ways.

 By Maria Hart 

Sometimes it’s the little things that get you. My little thing was diet soda. It was a small, daily habit, but as Annie Dillard said, “How you spend your days is how you spend your life.” And following that logic, I was spending my life swimming in chemical soup.

Portrait of the Diet Cola Fiend: The Early Years

Here’s an easy test to determine whether you’re addicted to a substance: Do you have specific criteria for your preferred “high?” If so, you might have a problem.

I had a brand of choice, and I always wanted to drink from a can for maximum coldness. Never with a straw, I wanted to plant my lips on the can like an extended kiss. And I lived for that kkk-shhhew sound of the can popping open. (Years after kicking the habit, hearing that sound will kick off a reaction. Dr. Pavlov, you knew your stuff.)

My love went deep. Diet soda was wonderful! Every can was a mini celebration. The jubilant bubbles! The hit o’ sweet! That pick-me-up perk of caffeine. A can alone was enough to turn a crummy moment around.

And when I didn’t have soda… well, I was no fun at all. Headaches from the lack of caffeine and sluggishness were my standard physical symptoms of withdrawal. But worse was that dull, gray feeling like my day had flatlined into a treat-free zone with no pick-me-ups on the horizon. So very sad.

What started as an occasional trip to the vending machine became a four-to-five-can-a-day habit at my first post-college job. The work, answering phones and doing filing, was dead boring, but I had a vending machine just steps away from my desk. And it had my cola of choice. Dangerfood, enter stage left. I had one with every meal—including breakfast—and one or two with snacks. It got to the point that I’d filled an entire filing cabinet with cans. Taking them home to recycle was my soda walk of shame: these discarded silver husks clattering around in an oversized bag were a reminder that I was out of control.

99 Reasons to Quit, but Flavor Wasn’t One 

I justified my addiction in many ways; my primary rationale being that diet soda seemed so innocent. I didn’t do drugs or smoke, and I hardly ever drank alcohol. Soda was my one and only vice, and didn’t everyone deserve to have one of those?

As far as bad habits went, my diet soda dependency certainly didn’t make me special. Around, oh, 63 million Americans drink diet soda on any given day. And I can tell you, no one ever wrote a compelling character for a prime-time drama with the description, “Hard living and years of diet soda had colored her past.” Basically the monkey on my back was neither interesting nor cool. (Picture Don Draper hitting a supersized fountain soda instead of his bourbon. Bye-bye sex appeal.)

Plus, there were plenty of compelling reasons to quit. Artificial sweeteners have been linked to many serious diseases: metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease. The caramel coloring has even been linked to cancer. What if I let vanity be my guide and decide a little chemo was worth a little waist? Bad news, cola lovers, studies show diet soda actually adds several notches to your belt loop. And new research proves diet cola can prompt you to go gaga on sweets, negating those “no calorie” claims. 

So I finally decided to quit. And failed. And failed two more times. And then failed again. Finally, on my fifth go, I cracked the code on my addiction. And that’s where I am now, living free from the cola cuffs that once bound me.

If you’re struggling with quitting this saccharine brown stuff, learn from my attempts, both the repeated failures, and my final triumph.

My Four Failed Attempts, in Brief

Attempt No. 1: Moderation

"Moderation" is a nice word, right? It’s warm and inclusive, where “quit” is so harsh. For me, the trouble with moderation is that the boundaries are so fuzzy. What does it look like? What are the rules? When I’m guzzling down four to five cans a day, is moderation one can? Or three? And which cans do I sacrifice? Surely not breakfast—it’s the most important meal of the day! And not lunch. I need my lunchtime boost! And not my snack time. (You can see why this didn’t work.)

Attempt No. 2: Cold Turkey

OK, moderation was a bust, so I needed to get tough. And the tough go cold turkey. Tap water became my new diet soda. The only hitch was that I hate tap water. Every sip felt like a punishment. And was I really going to have an afternoon cookie with a glass of tap water? That just seemed so, so sad. Where was the celebratory sparkle? The fun? The party in a can? 

Cold turkey didn’t last.

Attempt No. 3: Change of Environment

By now, I’d figured out my environment had a lot to do with my addiction. I needed a diet soda rehab center away from my corner store and my vending machine. And I had the perfect moment to bust out of my routine: I was going to remote Alaska for two weeks. There, I could measure the distance between me and diet soda in nautical miles. I could go through my caffeine withdrawal in my little cabin far away from diet soda’s siren song of sweet relief. Sure enough, after a week, I was off the stuff. Here’s the problem: I hadn’t laid any groundwork that would help me navigate the difficulties of my soda abstinence once I was back in my day-to-day life. I assumed I’d breeze by any shelves and coolers of diet soda I came across. But as soon as I had my first stressful day at work, I was back in the warm glow of the vending machine.

Attempt No. 4: Back to Cold Turkey

Obviously the problem was my lack of willpower. But I really wanted to change! I would redouble my efforts. I would avoid… oh who am I kidding? It didn’t work the first time, and it didn’t work this time either.

Seeing the Light: My Fifth and Final Attempt

What was different this time? I turned to science. I started studying the pattern of habits. Habits are largely unconscious, which is why they’re so hard to break. Your brain is so used to treading the same path that it’s hard to forge new ones. That goes double for something that’s a daily habit, which has worn deep grooves into your brain’s carpet. The trouble with stopping that behavior is you’ve already conditioned your unconscious mind, which is almost impossible to undo.

I read Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, and I started to understand something he calls “the habit loop.” In the book, Duhigg breaks down the unconscious cycle of habit into three steps: cue, routine, and reward. Subtle cues we read during the day will trigger our behavior and that in turn will give us a reward. The reward cements the behavior loop. That means once we see the cue, our brain has already hit fast-forward, and it’s reaching for that treat. Often you’re not even aware of these cues, you just find yourself surrounded by empty husks of diet soda all over your desk (to use an entirely random example).

The bad news is once the habit loop is in place, it’s incredibly difficult to dismantle. But there’s hope. You can hack the habit loop. The key is to keep the same behavior and reward, but change the routine.

Hacking the Habit Loop

Duhigg uses the example of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here’s what an alcoholic’s habit loop looks like according to Dunhigg:

Cue: Tough day at the office. 

Routine: Hit the bar HARD. Shots! Sing-a-longs! The bartender so gets me.

Reward: Feeling good, supported, and stress-free.

Now the alcoholic joins AA:

Cue: Tough day at the office. 

Routine: Hit AA. Stories! Donuts! My sponsor so gets me.

Reward: Feeling good, supported, and stress-free.

Now my habit isn’t as damaging as alcoholism, but it’s easy to apply the same principles. Here’s my typical diet soda run:

Cue: Tough day at work, I look up from my inbox to see it’s 4 p.m., diet soda o’clock. Time for a treat! 

Routine: Walk away from my desk to the vending machine. Crack open a cold can.

Reward: Ahh! Sweet, sweet soda. Pleasure centers in the brain light up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

My mission was to keep the same habit, but replace the outcome. Afternoon “treat time” could not be undone. But it could be another routine.

My problem: the reward needed to be the same. That’s when I took a hard look at diet soda itself. 

Breaking Down the Formula: Bubbles and Sugar and Caffeine, Oh My!

What could give me that same kick in the prefrontal cortex? I examined the formula and tried to replace those components. In diet soda, I get three things: bubbles, a sweet treat, and caffeine. Finding all three in a natural beverage was tricky. But I could find a substitute for each. Seltzer could give me my festive bubbles, iced tea or coffee my caffeine, and milky-sugary additions to that would be my sweet treat.

Real talk: That last one wasn’t exactly healthy. When I first started hacking my habit loop, I was basically swapping diet soda for cake-in-a-cup: I drank coffee or tea with a giant splash of milk and heaps of sugar. But, it was all natural, and that was my starting point. Step by step, I pulled back on the sugar, swapped in almond milk, and my treat became a bit more healthy.

This took time. My brain was wired for a big wallop of sweet, and yanking that away wouldn’t give me the reward I expected. The game plan was to shift my palate slowly so I’d still “read” the beverage as my treat and my brain would be fully fooled. 

Meet My New Habit Loop

My reward in place, I subbed in my new routine into my habit loop. It unfolded like this:

Cue: Tough day at work, I look up from my inbox to see it’s 4 p.m., iced tea o’clock. Time for a treat!

Routine: Walk away from my desk to the coffee shop. Grab an iced tea with a splash of almond milk and some Stevia.

Reward: Ahh! Sweet, sweet iced tea. Pleasure centers in the brain light up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Success!

Yes, my fellow diet soda fiends, the system works. Miraculously my brain picked up this new flight pattern knowing the reward would be waiting, and I managed to dupe myself into my new MacGruber-ed faux diet soda. The happy ending is that years later I can confidently say I’m in diet soda remission. I can walk past the vending machine with my head held high. 

To all the other diet soda fiends out there I can say, it gets better.

Change or Die

In the spirit of my fictitious self-help savant, The Coupon Kid, I started Alan Deutschman's book Change or Die. Who can resist a compelling title like that?

No more hi-carb snacks or sedentary lifestyle.

Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life by Alan Deutschman

Change or Die. What if you were given that choice?

If you didn't, your time would end soon—a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change matters most?

This is the question Alan Deutschman poses in Change or Die, which began as a sensational cover story by the same title for Fast Company.

Deutschman concludes that although we all have the ability to change our behavior, we rarely ever do.

From patients suffering from heart disease to repeat offenders in the criminal justice system to companies trapped in the mold of unsuccessful business practices, many of us could prevent ominous outcomes by simply changing our mindset.

A powerful book with universal appeal, Change or Die deconstructs and debunks age-old myths about change and empowers us with three critical keys—relate, repeat, and reframe—to help us make important positive changes in our lives. Explaining breakthrough research and progressive ideas from a wide selection of leaders in medicine, science, and business (including Dr. Dean Ornish, Mimi Silbert of the Delancey Street Foundation, Bill Gates, Daniel Boulud, and many others), Deutschman demonstrates how anyone can achieve lasting, revolutionary changes that are positive, attainable, and absolutely vital.

Alan Deutschman on CNBC.

Interview: Alan Deutschman: The benefits of change

What really inspires positive change is hope, not fear, according to a leading writer on change and innovation.

Alan Deutschman is the author of “Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life,” first published in 2007.

He uses compelling case studies to show how heart patients, criminals, drug addicts and multibillion-dollar corporations can improve their future prospects by embracing change that at first may seem impossible.

“My research shows that what really stimulates and sustains a change effort is getting positive results, really being able to feel tangible benefits from the change fairly early on,” said Deutschman, former executive director of Unboundary, a strategy consulting firm for top executives.

Deutschman also spent 19 years as a business journalist in Silicon Valley. He has profiled innovators around the world and discovered some of what makes up effective leadership, especially during times of change.

His book outlines the “three F’s” -- facts, fear and force -- which he said are often employed but ultimately doomed to failure as change agents. Instead, he said, they should be replaced with the “three R’s”: relate, repeat and reframe.

In this interview, Deutschman describes the three R’s and offers examples of how they have been successful in helping individuals and organizations make lasting change. The following is an edited transcript.

Q: What’s the problem with the three F’s?

We start out by assuming that people are rational, and we’ll give them the facts -- and that doesn’t work.

So then we say, well, maybe people are primarily emotional, and so let’s appeal to their emotions. The most powerful emotion is fear, so the second F is fear. We’re just going to try to really, really frighten people in hopes that that’s going to motivate them to change.

Then the third F is force. By force I mean falling back on the moral authority of your position.
This is what we fall back on when we’ve failed to persuade people either through cool reason or through intense emotion.

Q: Where does the title of the book come from, “Change or Die”?

The idea is that people or organizations will only change if they’re faced with a true crisis. So in the book, I look at the biggest crisis that any of us can face: a life-threatening health situation.

Yet with heart patients, 90 percent go back to the same unhealthy habits that they were living with before. Even after their doctors say, “You have to change, or you’re going to die.”

Q: You explain in the book that people avoid things that frighten them, so they avoid the change they need to make, right?

It’s actually a very adaptive response to try to avoid dealing with the problems, because if you don’t, you’re not going to get up and get the kids off to school and feed the dog and get your to-do list done.

We tend to actually focus on the things we have to do that we can do and we can get done, as opposed to the long-term problems that seem overwhelming and impossible to us.

Q: Why is hope important when people or organizations are trying to change?

People have to think that change is possible for them. That’s behind the effectiveness of 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. You can see people who are like you, who have had the same seemingly overwhelming problems, and that some of them are really changing and making progress. Often [change] starts by connecting with even one other person or a community that you feel some emotional connection with.

Q: What are the three R’s, and why are they effective in creating change?

The first R is what I call “relate,” and this means forming a close emotional relationship with a person or with a group of peers that inspires a sense of hope and belief that things can be different.

If you wanted to learn to play a new sport or to play a musical instrument or to speak a foreign language, you would want a teacher, a mentor, a coach to help you through it. If you have a coach or a mentor who believes in you, that can open that window as well.

Once you connect with this individual or community, you start taking actions that get you where you want to go.

Q: Talk about the second R -- repeat.

In the book, I look at the Delancey Street program [in San Francisco] that takes felons out of the state prison system. They don’t know how to walk the way middle-class people walk. They don’t know how to talk that way.

Delancey Street tries to teach them how to live in law-abiding, middle-class, sober, nonviolent society.

Change in our lives is the same way. There are just dozens and dozens of small things that we need to actually learn by doing and doing it again and again.

I grew up in the Jewish tradition, where in the Old Testament and the Torah, it’s actually about the practices. In the Torah, there are 613 direct commandments from God, often little things that you’re supposed to do from day to day.

These little actions and daily practices instill the belief, as opposed to the belief informing and motivating the action.

Of course, it can work both ways, but I’ve found that many successful programs are focused on the actions of daily living.

In Alcoholics Anonymous and some 12-step programs, they say, “Fake it until you make it.” You go through certain actions and steps until you ultimately come to a new understanding.

Q: The third R is reframe. It sounds like telling a new narrative of yourself.

That’s exactly what it’s like. Delancey Street has a weekend-long process where the residents tell their life stories, then the community comes together to say, “We understand you and we understand the way you were, and you’re not that way anymore.”

As in many spiritual traditions, it’s a vehicle for atonement and for reckoning with the way you used to be. It’s a profound thing.

Q: At IBM, how were the three R’s cultivated and used to create a new structure that made it a learning organization?

The more successful you’ve been, in many ways, the harder it is to change. Your culture and your people have deeply entrenched beliefs about who they are and the way things are supposed to be.

Here was a company that in many ways was the most successful company in American capitalism.

When there was a profound shift in technology, IBM found itself going from having been the most successful company in American capitalism to being threatened with going out of business. IBM experienced its own change-or-die crisis as an organization.

After IBM nearly collapsed in the early 1990s, they brought in a new chief executive officer, Lou Gerstner, who had been the head of Nabisco. The IBM people derided him as “the cookie guy.” Then the cookie guy hired as his chief of strategy [J. Bruce Harreld], a man who had helped found the Boston Chicken chain of fast-food rotisserie chicken restaurants.

The IBM people said, “Oh great! Now we have the cookie guy, and he’s bringing in ‘the chicken guy,’ who is going to tell us how to run the world’s most important technology company.”

The chicken guy comes in to focus people on inventing new things and starts promising new businesses that are entrepreneurial and nimble. To set an example, he took one of these senior executives, Rod Adkins, and said, “You no longer are going to have thousands of employees and billions of dollars that you’re responsible for. Starting today, we’d like you to start a brand-new entrepreneurial business for us from scratch and show how we can build these future businesses.”

This created a mentor relationship between the chicken guy, who knew about entrepreneurship, and the veteran IBM executive. [Their relationship] went through stages of change as they went out and started a new business.

[Adkins] learned new skills and habits by actually going out and building experience.

Ultimately, that executive created a new multibillion-dollar-a-year business and made the shift from thinking like a bureaucrat to thinking like an entrepreneur.

Once IBM had this one example, other senior executives saw that it would be possible to succeed, and that led to a bigger shift in the entire corporate culture.

Q: If a leader in a long-established institution sees the need for change, how would you recommend that he or she proceed?

Change could be inspired by making new connections with other spiritual communities or other spiritual leaders who have different approaches. Have a contingent from their group come spend time together with you.

Making that connection with other people who are similar enough to you that there is mutual understanding and respect, but different enough that you can see the possibility and the value of doing things differently, could lead to the possibility of change.

Q: The three R’s rely on people beginning in their comfort zone, then moving out of it. What’s the balance there?

If I’m trying to become a good tennis player and I’m watching [tennis champion] Roger Federer playing in Wimbledon on TV, I know I’m never going to be Federer. He’s like a different species.

But if I go to my neighborhood tennis courts and see someone who, like myself, is 46 and a little bit out of shape but who is really doing a good job playing tennis, I might think, “If he can do it, maybe I can do it.” Having a connection with people we can see ourselves in, to some extent, helps make it seem more real and more attainable.

Q: At the end of the book, you apologize for the dramatic title, “Change or Die.” You say that it ought to be “Change and Thrive.” Could you talk a little bit about the notion of thriving and the conditions of change that make thriving possible?

As Americans, whatever our background, there is still this almost Puritan-like influence, the Protestant work ethic, a sense that things have to be painful for us to progress and thrive. But what I’ve found in my research is that in change efforts that work, people really feel the benefits. That is extremely motivating.

Look at the Dean Ornish program for heart patients. People go on this very rigorous diet early on with the idea that they want to quickly get to the point of losing weight. People are feeling better because of these new benefits, and that’s extremely motivating.

Fear can inspire people for a short period of time, but ultimately fear is just too overwhelming for us to keep in the forefront of our minds. What really sustains and motivates change is that feeling of thriving; it’s that feeling of, “Gee, I’m not smoking anymore, and I can breathe freely.”

Q: Your book came out first in 2007. Has anything changed in the landscape of change issues?

The economic and financial collapse that has occurred since my book came out is starting to lead people to live in different ways. For many of us, our expectation of never-ending prosperity and limitless economic opportunity has ended.

We’re starting to reframe a new concept of how we should live our lives and the role of our economic lives in our well-being. People are starting to think that maybe it’s OK to rent rather than to own my home, and maybe there are other things that are more important in life than buying another big house or big car.

I wonder if whether, as a culture, we’ve become open to the possibility of good, fulfilling lives without repeating the same economic cycles of the past three decades.

Q: Is that a reframing of our national story?

Exactly. We had this national story that we told ourselves, as a people of the American dream, of great, limitless prosperity. It will be interesting to see whether, after two or three or four years of living in a different way, we may be starting to think about our lives in a different way.
It will be interesting to see how we change and adapt -- or whether we don’t.