I quit drinking diet coke during the holiday weekend. I figured I'd give my coworkers a break during my detox. In order to avoid the caffeine headache, I changed to iced tea, which I've always really liked but lacks the punch of diet coke. However, like some smokers only smoke when they drink, I crave a lot of snacks when I drink diet coke. I was hoping the switch to tea would resolve that. And, it appears it has helped.

I think both are nasty, unnatural, and unnecessary ( not that everything has to be natural) For me, the "Over the top" flavoring just encourages bad eating choices. I can now appreciate an unsweetened glass of tea or a huge bottle of H2O after a killer work out. But thats just me.

I'm only laughing because I'm the exact same way. Counting calories/figuring out calorie deficit is the first time in my life I've ever *enjoyed* doing math.

LOL i totally understand you.. at least im not alone !! I dread most kinds of math, even balancing my checkbook.. but there is something so EMPOWERING about being able to calculate your weight loss..

Now.. if i could just figure out the equations to deal with sodium related water retention.. and of course.. that TOM.. i'd be on to something im sure!

If you could do that, you'd have my vote for president in 2008.

This may be unpopular among soda drinkers but I am firmly convinced diet soda and artificial sweeteners DO make you gain weight and, in any case, they are just plain not healthful. One of the best things I ever did for myself was just pretty much stop drinking the stuff completely.

But in any case, just switching from regular to diet coke is certainly not going to cause "weight loss like crazy." Take healthful eating and exercise.

Congrats to hubby for giving up the "regular" stuff. That's a huge step!!! You said it's been 2 weeks. Has he lost any?

It may just be that the reduction in calories may allow him to not gain, but it's just not enough to make him lose. Like everyone else said - calories in - calories out.

But there is no way I'd switch back to regular pop. Stick with the diet. Great first step!!

When I moved to Korea I stopped drinking diet soda and a lot of coffee. (Although I do drink in the cup in the morning and an occasional starbucks.) I think it had something to do with eating more korean food and just loving my big bottle water cooler in my house. Plus Korea is VERY dry in the winter so you tend to drink more water as is yellow dust season.

You know what changed for me after I got off the soda.... Dentist visits. My dentist gives me great reports .....no cavities, good gums now.. etc.....I have a little tartar here and there but overall he says my teeth look great! It might not be the same for anyone else here but I just thought I would add this benefit for me. I also do not eat a lot of really sweet foods as much because I just don't. (Even when I was in Vegas I was so excited to have gelato and I lost my taste for it.) Five years ago I was all about the cupcakes, cake, cookies and diet coke. My tastes just changed.

I know when my dad was diagnosed with diabetes that was the first change the doctor suggested was the switch from Coke to diet drinks. (He was more of a 12 pack or 2-3 liter a day kind of guy.) He dropped 45 pounds in a month just with the switch. Of course he is diabetic too. That's been a few years now and his weight has slowly started creaping back on but only because he eats more of the sugar-free treats than before .

I think we've seen on here to each is own when it comes to diet pop.

I just read in Woman's World that when you drink Diet Soda, your body is expecting calories, but hen it doesn't get them, tries to find them in other avenues, so maybe it holds onto the calories it does get?

I'm not sure after all this is the same magazine with a different new diet plan every week & 3 pages later a bnch of fatty or sugary or salty recipes.

I know my doctor told me not to drink anything other than water, but I have special circumstances.

However, special circumstances or not, I am NOT drinking water w/something fun like (thin crust veggie) pizza. So I choose caffeine free diet sodas, and the biggest downfall for me is, you have to buy them in a 12 pack. So if you want different flavors for variety, but only drink maybe 2 cans a month, you are stuck with 40 cans of diet soda staring at you.

Too bad you can't mix & match. 2 cans of Peach Fresca, 2 cans of Diet Root Beer, 2 cans of Sierra Mist Free, 2 cans of caffeine free Diet Pepsi, 2 cans of caffeine free Diet Dr Pepper, and 2 cans of diet Squirt.

SAPF, I wish we could mix and match like that too! I get bored easily with having to drink 12 of the same sodas! And did you say PEACH Fresca??? Haven't seen that here yet!

Soda isn't one of my vices, so I only have them occasionally...usually if we are out at the pub with friends. I've been sticking to tea, Crystal light, or just plain old H2O.

For me, real pop is like the crack of my diet. If I'm eating something special, like pizza or hamburgers. I want real soda. If I've been partying the night before, the first thing I want in the morning is a real coke. LOL. I am sooo predictable. You would think I would know if I am craving a real soda, I am not behaving myself!

I have never been much of a soda drinker one way or the other but I did notice that when I tried adding sugar free jello and a few sodas to my diet my weight loss came to a screeching halt while eating about the same.

I have read in a few sources (most recently from the Eat Right 4 Your Type Dr Peter D'Adamo) that aspartame (a common artificial sweetener) is a metablolic inhibitor. I recently tried switching to products sweetened only with Splenda to see if that helps. Hasn't been long enough (only a few weeks) to see if that works for me. I think it is a pretty individual thing depending on your metabolism and sensitivites to food items. Certainly not an exact science.

wow.. Now I'm completely confused - good conversation, though. Jim is sticking to diet soda right now.. but we are going to try to aim to get rid of it all together.

I'm a two-can-a-week diet soda drinker. Most of the time I'll drink water or iced tea (a nice fruity Russian tea that I barely sweeten with a mixture of sugar and Splenda to get my husband to drink it, as he's a two-can-a-DAY regular soda drinker).

I deal with the variety issue the same way I deal with making big batches of food for the freezer. A new one each week or two, and then after a while I have a variety in the freezer. So one week I'll buy some Diet Coke with Lime and next week Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper. I'll still have some Diet Coke left over, and can alternate. The week after, I get something fruity, and I have three varieties. And since I'm drinking a few each week, I just move the "new" cans into the old boxes. So I pretty much end up with two boxes, both of which are a mixture of flavors.