I promised, and I lied

I swore I was going to give up Diet Coke. I really did intend to. Really. I’ve completely cleaned up my eating and exercise habits over the last year, and I’ve been on a “no fake food” kick over the last few of months. I don’t eat a lot of stuff that comes in a box or a plastic bag these days. I avoid the scourge of High Fructose Corn Syrup. I don’t drink much alcohol anymore (OK, some.) I am one of those evil people who has lost a ton of weight and won’t shut up about it (and yet, I still eat carbs. ha ha!)

Given my No Fake Food rule you would think that Diet Coke would be right up there at the top of the list of DON’Ts. There’s nothing in here that’s not fake. OK, water. But aspartame? potassium benzoate? This is nasty shit. Contains phenylalanine. What the hell? Plus: I know I don’t react well to caffeine. I like caffeine a lot. I really like it a lot a lot. But I can’t handle it. Besides the vicious shakes and the short temper (actually, I never scream at people who don’t deserve it), there’s the other little problem of not sleeping. At all. I hear this is generally considered in medical circles to be a bad thing.

So I give up diet coke, I drink decaf coffee, I put away my penguin mints. But when I get stressed at work I gravitate toward caffiene because it makes it easier for me to focus (does it surprise anyone here that I am easily distracted? I didn’t think so). I should stick with coffee because there’s less crap in it but the coffee here isn’t very good and it has to be fixed and it has to be drunk warm and the diet coke is just more convenient all around.

Oh bah. I am justifying. I have no excuse. I’m falling apart. This is what happens when you don’t get enough sleep because you’ve had too much caffiene.