Too Much Diet Coke Pt. II
Remember yesterday when I talked about Tom Bissell’s terrible 10 Diet Cokes a day habit? And how I once too had a similar habit and switched to Seltzer water? I am glad I switched to seltzer water, because look at this Guardian article:
A pathologist has said a New Zealand woman’s eight-litre-a-day Coca-Cola habit probably contributed to her death, a conclusion that led the soft-drink giant to note that even water can be deadly in excessive amounts.
I mean, “Ahhhh!” Also, I imagine her drinking four 2-liter bottles of Coke a day, and thinking that is a thing that isn’t so far-fetched in the U.S. of A.?
“The first thing she would do in the morning was to have a drink of Coke beside her bed and the last thing she would do at night was have a drink of Coke,” Hodgkinson said. “She was addicted to Coke.”
Hodgkinson said she ate little and smoked about 30 cigarettes a day. In the months before her death, he said, Harris had experienced blood pressure problems and lacked energy.
Oh, well all those cigarettes probably killed her too. I’m not one to shame people for their soda-drinking or smoking habits, but, yikes.
I had a professor in college who would drink a 2-liter bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper over the course of a 75-minute lecture. Mostly I wondered how she did it without pee breaks.
Ok Mike Dang, I’ve now read enough of your posts now to feel comfortable to suggest that we are in fact the same person. The switching from Coke to Seltzer connection is the last straw (har har). (Though, it was Classic Coke in a can for me, for breakfast, as I’m not a coffee drinker.) Your post about liking paying taxes and why? I recently gave that same speech to a co-worker. Your year in the life of saving, and going to spain for $250? I did that in 2009 (but the ticket to madrid was $300 round trip)–and I also called Air France to make sure it was a real flight. Considering I explained the virtues of the Income Based Repayment loan program to a friend today, I can only assume you have a post for that topic on deck. (If not, I can write it, as I’ve explained it to enough people for the past 3 years.) Keep it coming–I look forward to reading your/our thoughts and financial philosophies in the future.
I know this post is eight months old but I want to comment on it for the record: when this was posted, I probably drank at least (at LEAST) 4-6 liters of Diet Coke or other diet caffeinated soda a day. Probably 8 liters some days. And now I don’t drink any. And that is easily the biggest thing I accomplished this year, not paying off my debt or losing 20 pounds or running my first 5k… that Diet Coke was the biggest monkey I’ve ever had on my back. It will save me thousands of dollars next year to not drink soda. It will probably give me years of my life. It will definitely save me on dental bills long-term. I am really happy with my decision to make the change in my life, finally.