In a struggle to be happy and free

Drystone Wall

Resolution status IV

My resolution to swear off Coke has failed. I don’t mean that I couldn’t help myself and fell off the wagon, but rather the desired outcome of the resolution didn’t come to fruition.

My logic was that if I replaced Coke with water, I’d avoid the intake of 160 calories for each 355 ml can I didn’t drink. The problem is I used to drink a fair bit of the stuff and much of that caloric intake needed to be replaced with something else. As a consequence, when I took the Coke out of the loop, I started eating more.

I don’t believe I’ve gained any weight, but I haven’t lost any, either. I probably benefit from more nutrition and less refined sugar, but food has fat so I have no doubt my diet has suffered that way. It’s a trade-off with largely positive impact, but it comes without the outcome I was hoping for.

So what I’ll do is not avoid Coke almost entirely. I will not go back to drinking the quantity I had in the past, but I will feel free to indulge when the mood strikes. This experience has taught me that losing weight isn’t as simple as I was hoping it would be. My mistake was believing I could tinker with one variable to produce the desired effect with no other consequences. You’d think I’d know better. Perhaps hope springs eternal?

I don’t want to lose much weight, mind you, but to get where I want to be, it looks like I’ll no longer be able to avoid exercise. I’ll have to consider how to make that happen. Perhaps over an ice-cold Coke?

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1 Comment

  1. Your approach to weight loss is much like your approach to technology. In computers, if you’re experiencing a problem, you only change one variable at a time, and then observe any outcome from the change. If you go off changing multiple variables, you’ll never be able to figure out a good fix. Unfortunately (for you AND me), our bodies don’t work that way. Seems to me that it should just be a matter of numbers, you know? Less calories in or more calories burned = weight loss. But that doesn’t completely work, either.

    I’ll share a Coke with you while we figure it out. 🙂

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