My husband is a vegetarian who is still working on adding vegetables to his diet. Before this challenge, his two major “food sources” were pizza and Coke.  He was drinking four to five 20oz. bottles of Coke a day. He would even go to bed with a soda and wake up to drink it throughout the night. He would have three to five cheese pizzas (not slices, the whole pizza) per week.  

One of the first things he changed was to cut out the Cokes. It was very hard for him.  First he needed to find a substitute. He does not like water from the tap and does not like most water from the bottles. He would drink as much water as he could manage and then drink juices.  He would tell me that he could drink an entire 20oz bottle of water and still feel thirsty. This was due to his sugar “addiction.”  

His body was telling him it needed sugar and since he answered that call by drinking soda before, his body was telling him it was still thirsty because it didn’t receive the sugar it was asking for. He has been working on drinking more water and less juice.  He has not had a Coke in a month and a half and has lost 16 pounds so far.  When he gets a craving for something sweet he will get it, but he often complains that it is too sweet. 

Pizza is his comfort food. Whenever he is sick or has a birthday, or promotion, he wants pizza. Because I am not a huge fan of pizza, it is easy for me to limit how often it comes into the house. For Fathers Day he chose to have his comfort food. He got a frozen pizza he was quite fond of, but it is too salty for him now. 

Because he has minimized these things in his diet, they are no longer as pleasing to him. They no longer have that strong hold over him.  Going back to Coke and pizza would be doable, but he would have to build up those sugary and salty tolerances again.