All right everyone!!!

I have heard SOOO much debate over diet soda.. so is it in or is it out??


What are everyone's Opinions as well as EXPERIENCES.. I have researched and researched and researched to avail... I am more or less looking for someone to tell me, "Wendee, I stopped drinking diet soda and it made a difference!"

Whachyall think? Yay or nay on the diet soda!?

I never drank it anyway, so I can't say one way or the other. Here's an article if you're interested. Looks like there's no clear cut answer. http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/d...in-not-so-fast

Although I'm not totally there, I'm a whole-foods type, so I say nay because it's not real food, it's chemicals, and we don't really know for sure how those chemicals effect us.

Honestly? I don't notice much of a difference with DIET soda. Regular soda? Yes, definitely.

I drink diet soda 1-2 times a week or less. I think it's fine as long as you get your water in and drink diet soda in moderation.

I would like to kick the habit all together, but its just so fizzyily-bubbley delicious!!

I have been cutting back, but have heard a lot about water weight and bloating.. hummm..

I am a recovering diet pop addict. Once I stopped (drastically reduced) drinking the stuff, I noticed that my "hunger" and cravings were also stopped. Something about the chemicals in the pop was a trigger for me - the more I drank, the more I wanted to eat etc. Cutting it out has been huge for me! I've replaced it with water, and now I'll have 1 -2 oz of diet soda a day just for the taste. I've also noticed that I can taste more flavours in food - like the naural sweetness. I think it may not be the pop itself, but the artificial sweetner that was killing me.

I say, cut it out. It's working for me.

YES YES YES!! It is the aspartame that gives you those munchie gimme some food feelings!

I stopped wanting to eat a million hershey kisses an hour after I gave up diet coke and diet mtn dew.

If you still need bubbly goodness, try Zevia, it is an all natural diet soda with no aspartame or splenda. It's not cheap, but one Zevia a day is WAY better and cheaper than a diet coke habit.

Good luck!

I don't drink it because, to me, it tastes terrible. But I can't say much about the weight. I know for a fact, though, if I were still drinking regular soda there'd be now way for me to lose weight. It's just not worth it, IMO.

Personally, I believe that diet pop contains chemicals I don't want to put into my body on a regular basis. Having a diet pop once or twice a month isn't going to kill anyone, but I think having it daily would be scary. The few times that I've had it, I find that it made me feel a bit bloated or gassy and I also found that rather than quenching my thirst, it just kept making me more and more thirsty. Plus, I quite simply don't like the taste of most of them. They leave a chemically, metallic aftertaste in my mouth. With that said, I am sympathetic towards people who are using diet soda to wean themselves off of regular soda with the eventual goal of cutting down on pop intake entirely. Personally, I consider myself lucky because my mom raised us in a strict no-pop household, so I never really developed a taste for pop as a child or younger teen, and when I was finally older and had more opportunities to drink it outside of the house, I found I didn't have a taste for it it much, it was just sickeningly sweet for me. I realize that I am very lucky in that regard. Sugary ice-tea, on the other hand, is a different story....

I like it. Drinking diet pop helped me lose the weight, and drinking it in moderation is helping me maintain that weight loss.

Evidently it can be a trigger food for some, but it doesn't affect me in that way. It is IMHO a tasty little treat that I enjoy.

Yay: I adore diet pop and drink two cans a day (one with lunch, one with dinner). Aspartame has no impact on my ability to lose weight, whereas others are very sensitive to it. As I'm sure you've noticed in this journey, it's different strokes for different folks.

I need to quit! I am trying to quit. I am crazy about natural foods otherwise. Like, I will take olive oil over low-cal no-stick sprays any day, because olive oil is real and a good fat and nothing to be afraid of.

But diet soda. It's insidious. I'm addicted. >:[

I haven't noticed it hampering my ability to lose weight, though. I'm really only a week into it, but I dropped a lot. I scaled my intake back, though, so that might have something to do with it.

I used to drink almost nothing except Diet Coke. Truly. I'd have two or three each day, and most days that's all I would consume in terms of fluid. At some point I switched to caffeine-free, but still - I must have been massively dehydrated for years. I really felt like it was an addiction, though. This sounds bizarre, but when I would travel internationally for work the thing I would miss most while away from home was Diet Coke; Coca-Cola Light tastes completely different. I spent 3 weeks in Germany last winter and would have killed for a Diet Coke, lol.

I still have some Diet Coke maybe once or twice each week, but I've lost the addiction to it that I used to have. When I began drinking much more water (I now drink 80-100 oz daily), I just didn't crave it the same way anymore, or at all really. It tastes different to me now, and on the occasions I do drink it, it seems to be more out of habit than anything else.

I don't know whether drinking or not drinking diet soda has impacted my weight loss. I wasn't trying to wean myself off of it, it just happened. I would say that if you're trying to cut back, trying upping your water intake by a lot. That's what seemed to make a difference for me.

Seconded! zevia is awesome, and although it is expensive and hard to get, it works to my benefit. I really don't want to be dependent on anything but water and tea for my fluid intake.

And as for diet coke, for me at least it was the right choice to just finally give it up entirely. I use to drink a bottle of diet coke for breakfast sometimes! My addiction to diet pop was definitely hard to break, and took me about a year to finally kick the habit. I've read books and seen stuff on the net that's neither her nor there, but i know that it does contain a mess of chemicals that can't possibly be good for me. Now that I have given up pop entirely, my skin is not as gray, and I think my hair looks better. (I'm not entirely sure if this is because of my new lifestyle changes, or giving up pop, or a combination of both) Diet soda also bloated me, and made me feel heavy and gross. I'm just upset at myself that it took me so long to give it up, and I know that my kids will never be introduced to soda because there are just no benefits from it.

Thanks for the responses ladies! I am going to kick the habbit! When my husband and I were living in Las Vegas, I was able to get Zevia at Whole Foods, but we moved to Boise, Idaho and do not have a Whole Foods here (yet, they are building one- to be opened in spring 2012). I looked at Fred Meyer, because they carry some organic "whole food" type of stuff, no such luck.

We have a local Co-op that I am going to check out today though! So Hopefully it will be there! If not, I have come up with a concoction that is similar to sprite I suppose, just to give me the bubbly I am looking for..

I bought club soda (which is 0 cals)
Cut up some limes and lemons
and added a few drops of Stevia! YUM!

I havent had a diet coke since Friday- only 3days, but I havent done this well without it for longer than a day in YEARS! Yippy!!

Im totally going to kick this habbit!!

It's the artificial sweeteners that can cause problems. They can trick the body into thinking your blood sugar is going up, which results in more insulin production and hunger/munchies. If I drink a diet soda (or another beverage or snack with artificial sweeteners) by itself, I notice cravings for something-especially carbs or sweets soon afterwords. If I only use artificial sweeteners WITH a meal containing significant protein, there aren't any problems.

That said, it's about moderation. I only have 1 or maybe 2 diet sodas per week at the most. Still primarily drink water, water, water!