Weight Watchers - Should I give up diet coke?

Okay, so I've gone back to my Weight Watchers meetings and have been tracking for two days, writing down everything and making good choices (go me!). My big question is, do you think I should give up diet coke? I do love it very much, but I'm looking for long term health and fitness and I want to hear opinions whether this is an okay drink or if people feel it stimulates appetite etc.

My thoughts are that when you are trying to do this you should every and any tool that helps. If you love diet Coke, drink it for now. what differences does it make? If it helps go for it. You may decide to give it up later but for now it is a good tool for you and I believe everyone needs some enjoyment on this ride or we just can't stay with it if it is totally joyless.

Could you please tell me how to access the cute little "rulers" you use in your posts??? Thank you.

The rulers are in your profile. If you click on private messages at top right and then signature you can add one if you've been here long enough.

I have never given up my Diet Coke and gotten to goal, had a great fitness level and great physical (MD) w/labs. I maintain goal for many, many years until medical reasons I gained.

It has no calories, it does contain artificial sweeteners and it does have phosphates that have been show to leech calcium from your bones but in moderation it is fine.

I used to drink 6-9 a day (along with all my water) but recently I've added water mixins so my ratio of soda to water is less (about 3 a day).

It has no calories, it does contain artificial sweeteners and it does have phosphates that have been show to leech calcium from your bones but in moderation it is fine.

That was reason enough for me to give it up when I finally decided to start taking care of my body.

i agree with the post above me. thats why i gave up diet coke as well.

You don't have to totally give it up. I drink a coke zero or a diet barq's rootbeer a day. ;) It is not a make or break deal for my fitness level or weight loss. I have cut down though. Before I started I was drinking like 6 + regular cokes/rootbeer a day. Yuck lol

I agree w/the other ladies. It is okay in moderation--like one a day. Before I was drinking 3-4 a day. I did give it up for a time. However, my family has pizza night every Friday. I must have a diet soda with my pizza. I drink 1-2 cups of coffee in the morning. The rest of the time I drink water or skim milk. Good luck.

The way I eat is so much about my health that I can't feel good about drinking diet soda. I used to have a huge Diet Coke problem, and lately I've been drinking it a lot again, so I know it's hard. But when I'm drinking Diet Coke, it re-awakens my sweet tooth, and re-awakens my appetite for junk food, and it makes me want to eat more.

I've never had a problem with weight loss and diet soda, I just tend to avoid it because I'm very wary of artificial sweetners and chemicals because I know so little about how they may impact my long-term health.

I think diet soda is okay in moderation, like one a day. I don't drink it because the artificial sweeteners bother my stomach. I drink basically water, one cup of coffee in the a.m. and skim milk.

i didnt give it up but did cut back alot of what i drank

I read in the "backinskinnyjeans" blog that she stopped all artificial sweetners and she was on her way to losing weight.

Hmmm... diet coke / diet pop in general are a huge weakness of mine. I have tried to give them up at least 2 dozen times... but I keep going back. I even tried flavored carbonated water, but it's just not diet coke.

For those of you that quit, did you notice any benefits? How did you quit, cold turkey? Replace it with something else?

I heard it's just the brown diet sodas that are bad, anyone else hear this?

I gave up diet mountain dew/dr pepper/coke (my entire caffeine intake) about 8 weeks ago and haven't really noticed any benefits other than my skin is amazing and I don't have headaches as much. It has not had any impact on my weight loss that I can tell, but I was surprised at how I had fooled myself into thinking I "needed" it. I would wake up, and head immediately for the fridge to get my fix, because I thought I had to have it to wake up. Turns out, I don't need it, I'm still coherent by the time I leave for work, and I do sleep a little better at night.
The way I quit was by cutting from 4 cans a day to 3, and so on, until one day I had one can, and only drank about half of it. This process took about 10 days. I really do miss the carbonation, but when I drink diet root beer or diet sprite (caffeine free) I get horrible headaches. Maybe I was sensitive to aspertame or artificial sweeteners but just ignored them because it was "normal" for me?
Anyway, I replaced it with water (I drink about 100 oz a day) and diet oceanspray in the mornings with breakfast (with splenda).

Pengbear, my experience with diet coke was similar. I gave it up (mostly) a couple of months ago. I have only taken one migraine pill in that time when usually I would have taken 8 or 9. Interestingly, the one time I had to take one was the day I drank 3 glasses of Crystal Light, so my guess is that the aspartame is what was triggering my migraines. Like you, I thought I needed the diet coke and I would religiously drink 2 cans every morning. The first thing I did when I got to my desk at work was crack open a diet coke.

I still will sometimes have one at lunch and I'll have one on the weekend, but my consumption is DRASTICALLY reduced. I don't know if it helped with losing weight, other than I don't have that false feeling of hunger that it almost always gave me. I am also sleeping much better and I feel that is due to the combination of cutting way back on caffeine and exercising more.

And really--I don't miss it at all. Now the first thing I do in the morning is fill up my waterbottle. If I need caffeine, I'll try a cup of hot tea first before I reach for a pop.

Phosphorus and calcium are codependent minerals - too much calcium and your phosphorus levels will drop - too much phosphorus and calcium will drop - you want both in your diet, but balanced properly. There are many healthy foods that contain phosphorus also, and avoiding them doesn't change the problem.

There's also a theory that an excess of acidity in the diet may also leach calcium from the bones, but that doesn't argue against any particularly acidic food, but rather the overall balance. Oranges, pineapple, and a lot of healthy foods are acidic, and you don't want to eliminate them from your diet.

We often get bits and snippets of nutrition "fact" that villainizes a food or substance that is neither good nor bad, but how it is fit into the diet that matters.

Americans don't do moderation well, and that's the largest problem. We have a tendency to overdo and then throw the baby out with the bathwater in reaction.

For those of you that quit, did you notice any benefits? How did you quit, cold turkey? Replace it with something else?


I gave up soda entirely about 8 years ago. I never really liked the taste of diet sodas and I found that I preferred lemonade to sprite. I still love the taste of root beer and usually have 3 or 4 cans a year (usually at parties once the bottled water runs out).

The only big effect I've noticed is that carbonated drinks are now mildly painful to drink. I'm not used to the carbonation any more.

Of course, I now live in the south (Texas) so my main drink of choice at restaurants is iced tea (unsweet) with a couple of packs of sweet and low added. I keep pitchers in my fridge with different crystal light flavors and another with a varied mix of iced tea flavors. At work I start my day with coffee and then continue with bottled water until I get home. I also keep single serving packs of Crystal Light in my desk for when I want to add some flavor to the water. Probably not the healthiest (artificial sweetener) but there IS life beyond soda.

My boyfriend still loves diet coke, so I keep a pack in my fridge at all times. I'm never tempted.

For those of you that quit, did you notice any benefits? How did you quit, cold turkey? Replace it with something else?


When I was on WW, I started drinking lots of diet pepsi. Hey, it was 0 calories, 0 points. So I could drink as much as I wanted (I thought). I honestly cannot remember why I decided to quit, but all I can say is thank god that I did. And yes, I quit cold turkey.

For three weeks after quitting I had massive heart palpitations - I asked my friend if he would do an ECG on me because I was worried, but when I told him I had quit aspartame he said it was a common withdrawal symptom that he had come across many times before. Sure enough, after three weeks the palpitations stopped. My stomach was WAY less bloated, I stopped having horrible stinky gas (TMI I know, but still important to mention!), and I started sleeping better and felt all around better.

Also, I was sort of trying to trick myself, because I knew a can of regular coke was 3 WW points, so I knew I wouldn't want to waste 3 points on a regular can of coke and it made me think twice about drinking it.

Ever since then I have never had aspartame. I tried drinking a swig of my boyfriend's diet pop and it was disgusting, and I had some sugar-free candy he got (which was full of aspartame) and had the worse stomach pain and gas afterward.

I'm so glad I quit!

~Choirgirl~

I've heard that about brown sodas, but I don't believe it's true. I think it's the artificial sweeteners and chemicals in them that is harmful overall.

I drink maybe one diet soda per week. Usually caffeine-free and it's just a break from all the water, water, water!

If you really enjoy DC then I say go for it, or cut back. I found some that are 8 ounce cans (half size) which is just enough!

I heard it's just the brown diet sodas that are bad, anyone else hear this?

I have heard this, but not because of the artificial sweeteners but because of the artificial colors they need to use to make it brown. Drinks like Sprite and 7-Up don't use artificial colors so they say they're better for you. Who know though! :)

I tend to agree with some of the others.....it's OK in moderation

I have completely given up Pepsi Max and Coke Zero. I have read the posts and I would suppose there is no right or wrong - it's all personal preference. Things in moderation are usually ok. I drink those mini Crystal Light packs and they have bad stuff in them too but I limit one per day - sometimes none.

However for me - I found that having one of those pops always lead to other things - eating it with chips or other snacks that I associated it with. My favorite after work snack was a big bag of chips and a coke zero. I can't seem to have one without the other. Everytime I have fallen off the wagon, it's started with diet or real pop - so I just don't drink it anymore!

It depends why you drink it in the first place! IF as Ms Stacie says, it leaads to chip and other things, like a "trigger food", then it might be best to put it away.
If you drink 6 or 7 a day, you might want to cut back. My concern is that so much cola stains your teeth and if you drink in these quantities, you can actually weaken your teeth because the acid dissolves the minerals of your teeth. This is with lots and lots every day for a long period of time. And this is a different effect from eating alot of acidic foods because colas are liquids and basically bathe your teeth in acid. Foods become somewhat diluted by chewing them, and hey, it is hard to chew up an entire pineapple three or four times a day. But there are some people out there who can drink 3 or 4 litres of Diet Cola in a day.
If you enjoy something cold and fizzy occasionally or once a day, then you may want to keep it.
I think Diet Colas/Root Beers/etc. kind of take the blame for alot of things, because as a society, we are happy to eat the chemicals in fat-free sugar-free heavily processed items (such as fat-free sugar-free yogourt, fat free sour cream, fat free cheeses, cool whip (goopy chemical soup!), low and fat free salad dressings and so on) and to cook with them (check out your latest WW recipe book/magazine) and we are happy to eat pre-packaged frozen dinners, but when it comes to one or two colas a day, we all freak out! We get alot of chemicals in our diets every day, and unless we want to be absolutely clean, we can cut back on some of these items and keep the others that we enjoy without much overall harm.
I personally have removed all the heavily processed fat-free and low-fat stuff from my diet (except for skim and 1% milk), but will drink a diet gingerale every day. I adjust the points and use as fresh and the least processed ingredients that I can find.
Kira

I love coke zero and i won't give it up. I do try to limit how many, like one a day, rarely 2, some days none but thats only because I drink it in place of water if I'm not careful...lol

However for me - I found that having one of those pops always lead to other things - eating it with chips or other snacks that I associated it with. My favorite after work snack was a big bag of chips and a coke zero. I can't seem to have one without the other. Everytime I have fallen off the wagon, it's started with diet or real pop - so I just don't drink it anymore!

That is soooo me!!! Very good point, I like that you brought that up.

~Choirgirl~

Cola-type drinks are also hard on your kidneys (too much phosphorous). If you have kidney problems you have to give them up. But you can have sprite, 7up, orange, etc. Water is still my drink of choice.

I have been struggling with the diet coke issue myself for years and years. I have cut back (most days) to one or two. I don't drink coffee and like a little caffeine in the morning, but I know it's not a healthy drink to be addicted to! I have chronic headaches and have been told it might be from the diet coke, yet I still drink it! I would suggest though, not giving up too much at once. As you start a new diet, make sure you're comfortable before you give up everything you love all at once. Make it gradual!

I think its better to give it up if you can.. water is the way to go! Drinking plenty of water will aid your weight loss efforts... drinking diet soda will not aid anything.. so why waste that liquid in your body when it could be water helping you to cleanse your body and help your organs work more efficiently

I have GOT to stop drinking so much diet coke. I know it's a trigger for me. Everytime I have one I can't stop eating until the soda is gone. I just went and dumped out the diet coke I was sipping on...... ;)

Wondering if DC is leading to some of my other "issues" the past month or so.

I am wondering if it effects different people differently. I seem to do much better without it..though I really like it.

I have just replace regular coke for diet/zero, and hoping in time to give it up completely been told after a few weeks to swap for caffine free and then slowly give it up. It's just an easy pick me up at work cos i dont like coffee or tea!! BAD BAD BAD me!