Oh, my. I think I'm up for it. I can still drink wine, right? Cutting out diet coke would be a huge deal, because I rely on the caffeine. I don't drink juice, so that's not an issue. Unless it's tomato juice in a bloody mary.

When does summer start and finish?

Summer = let's say May-June-July-August?

Diet soda is a tough question. I prefer to just cut it out altogether, personally. But the reason for my challenge is calories-based, so I don't have a good reason to put it in the prohibited list. So I guess the answer is, do what seems right to you when it comes to the rules here. What we're trying to go for is to cut pointless liquid calories and learn to respond to thirst by reaching for some cold, clear water instead.

I'm pretty much there already, I guess. Never been much of a soda drinker; I'll have some if it's what's going at someone else's house, but only choose it once in a blue moon for idiosyncratic and extra-gustatory reasons. A few years ago, for instance, I bought and drank a whole 2-litre bottle of Fresca because I'd been thinking about my grandmother, who loved it. And if I get sick, I treat myself to ginger ale.

On the other hand, I just had a Peet's chai freddo. I guess that qualifies as a "weekly frappe".

If you need me as a third person, I'll gladly participate, but I'm not sure I'm contributing the right spirit, you know?

Pomegranate juice as part of a wine spritzer? Is that allowed?

It's a great idea. I don't drink sugary soda (though I do love a diet coke as a treat now and then), and might only drink OJ if I'm out to breakfast or something. So I don't think I can contribute much but I'm all for it.

I'm cutting back on sugar right now myself - trying to stay within the recommended less than 26 grams a day (for me, it varies based on your total calorie intake). Do you know how little that is? It's actually hard! I ate pretty healthy already with very few packaged foods, but a lot of stuff I wouldn't have guessed has had to leave my diet because it's just too high in sugar.

One big shock now that I'm more label-conscious about this was the yogurt section in the store. It's awful. One Yoplait yogurt has more than *twice* the sugar of a serving of Breyer's chocolate ice cream! Even the lowest-in-sugar flavored yogurts have about 4 teaspoons' worth of sugar. IN si ounces!

I have been corn-syrup-avoidant for ages so I know it's in a lot of tomato sauces and salsas and peanut butters, and avoid those brands anyway. But it's also in cereals (even "healthy" ones: one serving of Kashi cereal, 13 grams, that's half the sugar for the day, or prepared oatmeal packets, 12 grams) and in crackers and whole wheat breads. Dried cranberries and blueberries. It's kind of lurking everywhere. And I understand adding a little sugar to things to sweeten them or balance the acid. But you honestly don't need the vast amounts companies are putting into these products.

I very seldom drink anything other than water and my one glass of milk a day, so participating in this would be kind of like my resolving to quit smoking.

"the yogurt section"

The one time I got seriously pissed off about a nutrition label was when I read one for granola. That junk has everything -- sugar, fat *and* salt. The calories in it are unreal. Plus, the problem was not just that particular brand of granola but spread across the entire product line. That was over ten years ago so perhaps the situation has improved, but somehow I doubt it.

Pomegranate juice as part of a wine spritzer? Is that allowed?

Yes, that's probably OK.

I should explain the concern about packaged fruit juice. What I meant was that if someone's skipping nutritionally-empty soft drinks they might think, I know, the answer is juices! And the companies making these juice boxes and bottles really play that up: vitamins, anti-oxidants, fresh from nature, blah blah.

The problem is that they're often just as sugar/calorie loaded as soft drinks. And I mean, I'm skeptical of drinking something that supposedly came out of an orange but didn't rot for months, right? The whole factory/flavoring/coloring/preservative process makes a mockery of the suggestion that what you're drinking is 'fruit juice'. Avoid drinking that stuff.

You can drink freshly squeezed juice if you want, but in my view that should be limited too (couple glasses a day?) I don't see a reason to give fruit sugars too much of a pass over glucose to be honest. What fruits have going for them is that alongside the sugars they're packed with good nutrients. So I think they're good alternatives to dairy/carb/sugar based treats, snacks and desserts. It's best to eat actual pieces of fruit though.

I drink an embarrassing amount of "Crystal Light" and "Mio" and similar stuff, and just went looking for a better quality of water-flavouring chemicals, and just mail-ordered £140 worth of sugar-free drink mix chemicals from the UK because: wow, they make pear flavour! among twenty others that were actual fruit flavours instead of "blue" or "mystery berry." Can't wait for the parcel to get here...

By which I mean to say I am probably not the target market for this :D

FWIW, it makes a nice beverage if you swizz fruit in a blender with a bit of sugar and lots of water/ice. Once I discussed beverages with a Colombian friend and I think she found it rather cute that that would be any sort of non-standard idea; apparently that sort of thing is common there;

http://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/mango-juice-jugo-de-mango
http://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/limonada-de-fresa-strawberry-limeade
http://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/pineapple-juice-jugo-de-pina

...easier, too, than cleaning out a juicer, and much more refreshing than the super-thick stuff that comes out of a juicer, and you retain all the fibre with the blender. I am not sugar-averse.

something I just started doing today is to infuse water with fruit!! Works like a charm. You just put some fruit or herbs etc into a big pitcher of water and put it in the fridge

An article about this with some pics: Naturally Flavored Water