Beverages???

I'm a big fan of sugar-free Kool-Aid (particularly the strawberry lemonade) because I don't typically like the carbonation of the diet sodas (though I have recently discovered blackberry citrus Fresca, which I love, even though it's carbonated!), and I get burnt out on water after a few months of nothing but water. But if you're trying to cut out the diet stuff because of the artificial sweeteners, the sugar-free Kool-Aid probably won't be of much use to you...

In the mornings, I sometimes enjoy a little bit of Hood brand low-carb chocolate dairy beverage (so good it can be hard to only drink one serving), but I suspect that also has artificial sweeteners in it.

So, really, it appears that I'm of no use to you...Unless you want to get brave and start playing around with adding sugar-free extracts to water. (I don't think sugar-free extracts have artificial sweeteners; they just don't have corn syrup listed as one of the ingredients.) Might not be the best idea, but if you're dying for something other than plain water...(I was once in serious need of strawberry milk, but I know the Nestle's strawberry flavoring is essentially pure sugar, so I added some strawberry extract--sugar-free, of course--to my fat-free low carb dairy beverage, and while not nearly as satisfying as the real thing, it was better than nothing.)

I don't know much about packaged iced tea or how you like your iced tea, but if you can stand to drink it unsweetened, you can always make iced tea out of hot tea bags/leaves and bypass the artificial sweeteners.

That's all I can think of. Good luck!

Heather

It is definitely hard to avoid artificial sweetners!! I haven't tried sugar-free kool-aid. That must have a lot of artificial stuff in it, but maybe it is more refreshing then a diet soda.
The herbal tea iced tea is interesting, I have never thought of that!
I kept track of what i was drinking over the course of a few days and i realized that all i had was a few cups of coffee, a 6 pack of diet pepsi, and one bottle of water. Not very refreshing at all, and made me a little concerned.
Before i was diabetic i used to drink gatorade all the time. Every so often i will drink a bottle of it in between meals, but its just too many carbs to have with a dinner.