Drinking excess soda isn’t great for your teeth or health overall, but plenty of people have a tough time giving up the fizzy stuff. Sweet, bubbly, and often caffeinated, soda is a habit-forming treat for many. However, it's possible to cut back (or completely remove) soft drinks from your diet over time. Here’s how to use tech to decrease your soda intake without feeling deprived.

How Does Soda Affect Your Health?

For the most part, long-term, frequent consumption of soft drinks isn't the best for your body. In general, persistently drinking soda may harm your teeth, because it correlates to dental erosion and tooth decay, according to a literature review from Journal of Zhejiang University Science B. If anyone appreciates your desire to cut back on soft drinks, it's your dentist.

In addition to other health issues, regular soda consumption may also correlate to an increase in blood pressure, according to Nutrition Journal. Although the effect is not necessarily extreme, reducing your consumption of soft drinks may help reduce the likelihood of developing certain health issues later on in life.

Likewise, drinking one or more sugar-sweetened sodas each day correlates with a higher risk of getting kidney stones, according to the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Researchers hypothesized that the fructose content in sodas could be to blame. On the other hand, increasing your intake of other drinks, including coffee, tea, and orange juice, may help decrease your risk of developing kidney stones.

For the most part, soda just isn't great for your health. Here are some strategies to help decrease your soda habit slowly, with help from a few apps.

1. Increase Your Water Intake

Instead of soda, start reaching for water whenever you feel thirsty. The free Drink Water: Drinking Reminder app can help make sure you’re staying hydrated throughout the day as well.

Start by calculating the general amount of water you need each day based on factors like your age and weight. Next, log your drinks throughout the day to fill up the outline of a person.

Use the app consistently to earn achievements and keep a streak (and your motivation) going. Pull up the statistics screen to view your progress over time. Super simple and fun to use, the Drink Water app will ensure you stay well-hydrated. In time, it'll help you replace your soda-drinking habit with some good old H2O instead.

Download: Drink Water: Drinking Reminder for iOS (Free)

2. Use a Habit-Quitting App

Apps like Quitzilla help you phase out bad habits and develop healthier ones. Choose the soda option on the setup screen, estimate the last time you had one, and start the timer. On the Home tab, you'll see a counter that displays the last time you had a soda, as well as how much time you have to reach your current goal.

The goal-setting option offers tremendous flexibility as well. If you don't want to go totally cold turkey, set a longer goal each time you decide to go without soda. For instance, try to go three days without soft drinks for the first goal, four days for the second one, and so forth.

On the Motivation screen, you'll find some preset reasons to quit drinking soda, as well as the option to add more reasons of your own. In addition, the Incentives screen tracks the amount of money you save by refraining from purchasing soda. You can also add a list of rewards for meeting your goals, whether that's a new video game or a trip to your favorite restaurant.

Download: Quitzilla: Bad Habit Tracker for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)

3. Try Out Alternative Drinks

Soda isn’t the only tasty beverage out there. Try different flavors of seltzer water or sparkling water if you enjoy the fizziness of soda. Add flavored water enhancers to your glass for an added boost of sweetness.

Adding a dash of lemon or other fruits to your water is another popular way to enjoy more flavorful beverages as well. For an occasional treat, play around with healthy smoothie apps to find delicious fruit and vegetable blends you enjoy.

If you’re concerned about caffeine withdrawals, then moderate amounts of coffee or tea can give you an energy boost without added sugars. (There’s also the option to break your caffeine addiction, too—but you don’t have to do everything all at once.)

4. Celebrate Your Successes

Keep a positive mindset by celebrating your successes over time, both big and small. For many people, simply keeping a streak going is motivating in its own right.

Want a visual reminder? A simple habit-tracking app like Days Since can display how many days in a row you make it without soda. (You can also track a reduction in your soda-drinking habits if that's your goal.) Even if you give in and have a soda, that’s fine: just start a new streak the next day and keep building from there.

5. Track Your Soda Savings

For a bit of positive motivation, track the money you’re saving by not purchasing soda. The Incentives screen on the Quitzilla app offers this information, or you can download a separate app for financial tracking. An app like Dime – Budget and Expenses can keep track of these savings as they add up.

Monitor your soft drinks expenses to get a sense of how much money you can save by cutting back. The Home screen offers a quick rundown of your weekly, monthly, or yearly expenses, while the Insights screen presents your spending habits in graph form, along with a daily average.

Lastly, the Budget screen lets you set a spending limit for your soda budget, which is handy for people who are looking to simply reduce their consumption. Set a daily, weekly, or monthly limit for this part of your budget, and the app lets you know how well you're sticking to that goal. If money's a strong motivator for you, tracking your savings might be the best way to reduce the soda you drink.

Download: Dime – Budget and Expenses for iOS (Free)

Quit Drinking Soda With Support From Apps

Whether you keep it as an occasional treat or eliminate soda from your diet completely, limiting your consumption of soft drinks is generally a great move for your health. Although changing longtime habits can be tough, a few motivating apps can make your goal to drink less soda much more achievable. After a few weeks, you won't miss soda much at all.