I have been on a diet of anywhere from 900 to 1200 cal. a day weight lose diet.I dont go by any one diet plan.I mix and match and watch my portion size and calories. I had got down to 209 1/2 and the only thing I changed is I started drink diet coke.I have put on 10 lbs.I still go to Curves follow same diet but since I started the diet drinks I have gained.I was told by several ladies it has to be the diet drinks.I just dont get it.They have no calories.But I do keep a 16 to a 20 oz. in my hand from the time I get up till bed.What is going on with that???????? Help ????? Does drinking them really make that much of a difference??

Water weight, from the coke????

Well, I do know that diet soda affects my weight loss somehow. And it's too bad because I love Diet Pepsi

When I started eating healthier and stopped soda for a while, I lost 10 lbs easily. But then I started drinking Diet Pepsi and I've stalled already. I guess I should should drink it occasionally, as a treat.

It's ASPERTAME. The stuff is truly evil. It totally screws up your metabolism and how your body processes sugar. That is why most diabetics are told by their doctors to avoid aspertame. Try Diet Coke with Splenda, see if that helps. The other thing to remember is that ALL caffeine is dehydrating. If I cave and let myself have a diet soda, I force myself to ALSO drink at least 32 oz of water EXTRA along with it.

The weeks I have gone without diet soda, I have lost .5 to 1 whole pound more than the weeks I do drink diet soda.

Waist Watchers is another brand made with splenda... but if you can give it up altogether, that would be the best.

I have caffeine sensitive migraines - in that if I DON'T have caffeine, I get a migraine. And I'm the SERIOUS migraine girl - the one who you may see in the hospital hooked up to a morphine drip because they are sooooo bad!! My doctors reccomended I try and STOP drinking caffeine to break my body's dependance on it. It's taken a while, but I'm virtually caffeine/soda free now - I had to have a half a can yesterday because of a particularly vicious migraine that was not responding to ANY meds. But I don't need to have it daily, and that's been awesome. However, it did cost me a lot of pain, but the benefits are GREATLY outweighing - my migraines are much less frequent! (They did have to perscribe me a med with caffeine in it to help with the migraines.) I believe that the ACTUAL problem was that the aspertame set OFF the migraine, but the caffeine helped the migraine... and you see where I'm going from here.

Coffee has the caffeine, and the dehydrating effect, so you should ALWAYS drink water alongside of it, but since it doesn't have all that other stuff added to it, it isn't quite as bad - and you can control what you add to it.

Oh - and don't be fooled by the new "Diet Coke Plus" - what diet coke does to you greatly outweighs the benefits of the vitamins and other "healthy benefits" it adds.

But back to the Aspertame - I have COMPLETELY cut it out of my diet. I chew sugared gum, eat the REAL cool whip - it is MUCH better for you to have a smaller portion of the "Real thing" than take in the aspertame. My gut thanks me every day for getting rid of aspertame!

It's really a highly individual thing. I've lost weight just fine while never giving up my diet soda habit (and yes, I drink ones with aspartame, not just Splenda--I think Splenda has a funky lemony aftertaste that I don't like).

Also, caffeine doesn't really dehydrate you. More recent studies show that while caffeine does have a mild diuretic effect, the amount of water it seeps from your body is less than that which is included in the drink from which you got the caffeine (i.e., if you drink a caffeinated 12-oz beverage, the amount of caffeine in that beverage will cause you to lose less than 12 oz of water). It can still be an issue, though, if you're drinking diet soda instead of water, since you won't get to "keep" much of the water from the sodas, if that makes sense. You don't have to go crazy and drink morewater because of the sodas, but you do need to make sure you're at least getting your normal amount of water each day in addition (not including) the soda.

Something else to look for is the sodium in soda. While most sodas don't contain much (typically up to 45mg per serving), some contain much more (I've seen up to 115mg per serving), so if you're drinking MANY servings a day, depending on the type of soda, it could add up.

Overall, though, right back to the first thing I said--it's a highly individual matter. Some people (like me) have NO ill side effects of soda, while others have issues. Some people are just more naturally sensitive to either (or both) artificial sweeteners and/or caffeine.

Unless your drinking soda has somehow lead to you also eating more (which it does for some people, as even artificial sweeteners can cause cravings for more sweets--are you still CLOSELY tracking your calories?), then that 10 pounds is NOT just FAT, since it takes 3500 calories to add a pound of fat to your body. I'd be willing to bet money that most, if not all, of it is water retention and bloat. You've gone soda-less before, so you know you can do it--maybe just cut down to 1-2 sodas a day if you can't go cold turkey?

Hi Ilerjo,

There has been a lot of talk in the medical and diet community about how the "fake" sugars can be seen by our body as real sugars and cause our insulin levels to rise and fall. I drink one diet soda a day and use Splenda in two cups of coffee each morning. I've never tried going without my coke and coffee so I'm not sure if the aspartame or splenda are having any effect on my weight loss. It might be worth trying an experiment and seeing what happens if they are eliminated from my diet.

I made up my mind to NOT drink any of the stuff (diet or regular soda) when I started this journey. I think it was a very good decision for me. I don't crave it anymore, and (I don't mean to sound like I am bragging) I have had wonderful losses just about every week. I guess it is an individual thing, but I can tell you I am REAL happy I don't want it anymore. (and water is a lot cheaper too!)

Dang as of today ladies i am giving up all diet soda... I have few in the frig.... I am going to finish up

I agree with jillybean that this really does seem to be an individual thing. I'm a little afraid of aspartame because of some of the rumors of what it can do to you, but I'm not yet afraid enough to give up my diet soda. It hasn't caused my weight loss to stall, so it may just affect different people in different ways. At some point, I may give it up as an experiment and see what happens, but for right now it makes me happy and for my success, a feeling that I'm NOT deprived is extremely important. When I tell myself something is completely off limits, I don't think my success will continue too long after that. So I don't do that to myself. That's just me, though.

Actually Jilly, I disagree with you a little bit about the dehydration/water thing.

Most "diets" are advocating 64 oz of water a day as the bare minimum. Most people struggle to drink just that 64 oz. If you then drink a 12 oz diet coke or reg coke, and it dehydrates you by let's say 10 oz, you're 10 oz down from your 64 oz.

Most people do NOT drink enough water as it is. That is why my doctor, my WW leaders, and many other people/professionals I've talked to about the subject say if you are going to drink a 12 oz can of soda, you should ALSO drink 12-24 oz of water. The idea behind this is to make sure that people realize that caffeine DOES dehydrate you, and that you do need to make up for that. Enough water consumption is especially critical when you are trying to lose weight, because, as I'm sure you know, your body cannot properly metabolize fat if you are not consuming enough water.

I don't know about the caffeine/dehydration thing, but I can definitely vouch for the fact that proper hydration levels help with fat loss. If I don't drink at least 64 oz, I retain so much water and just feel blah. I don't drink diet soda, but if you do, maybe it's best to err on the side of more water. Just a thought.

I have definitely noticed that this happens to me. I have, for the most part, switched from diet soda to unsweetened iced tea and/or water. When I do have a diet soda, I can rarely tolerate an entire can. As for the effects on my weight loss...I'll let you know!

p.s. If you're trying to cut back on soda, there are lots and lots of interesting teas out there. I just made some ginger peach sun tea - yum!

I'm no expert, but 900 calories a day seems way too low. Perhaps your metabolism is slowing down to conserve the little fuel it's getting in addition to retaining water? Just a thought. I weigh a little bit less than you and have been losing steadily on 15-1600 calories a day.

I'll try not to take too much time going back and forth on this, but please notice that I DID say that if you're drinking sodas, it should be in addition to your normal amount of water, not in place of any of your water, which means if you're drinking soda, you should still have your normal amount of water each day (which may be 64 oz, maybe more, maybe less--everyone is different, and even doctors don't know WHERE the idea of 64 oz--8 8-oz servings--came from ).

That's weird--I see my last post got a little messed up for some reason...I'll try to go put the words at the bottom of my last post back up into the body where they belong.

There's always some confusion about this, it seems, because people sometimes think diet soda drinkers are drinking it instead of water. I drink lots of water, but when I'm eating food I like to have a beverage with flavor in it (not flavored water, but something a bit stronger). It's just a personal preference. I would never replace my water with a Diet Coke, but I'll never like drinking water with food (unless it's fruit or something sweet). Drinking water with chicken, for example, makes me feel like I'm drinking chicken-flavored water, which is gross. Haha...I have weird preferences like that.