So, I love soda. Love it. Diet Pepsi max is my favorite, and people have told me multiple times that its so bad for me and it will make you gain ( or not lose weight). Any thoughts on this topic would be much appreciated. I drink usually at least 2 sodas a day, usually more... I prefer it over coffee. So, I guess the question is, how bad is soda for me, will it keep me from losing weight, and if you kicked your soda habit, how did you do it? What do you drink instead? Thanks!

OMG I was ADDICTED to Diet Coke all through highschool/university like 3-5 cans a day at times. Jitters and anxiety if I didn't have one when I was craving one. Life was terrible lol. About two years ago I made the switch to Club Soda. I figure i'm more addicted to the carbonation (i find it extremely thirst quenching) and every once in a blue moon i'll have a diet coke and I actually don't even like it that much anymore. It takes effort but it's worth it. Ingesting all of that aspartame can't be good for you and it certainly aids in the whole unhealthy eating thing (what goes well with a Diet Coke? why, chips, of course!).

At first Club Soda was kind of gross to me, so I would do half orange juice/have CS and then moved to CS with a squeeze of lemon or lime, and no I just drink it straight up, i love it!

I should also mention that I wasn't drinking coffee while I was drinking DC but now since my switch to CS and because my office has free coffee (the good kind) i've been drinking 1-2 cups a day, and someimtes I switch out my afternoon cup of joe for a cup of tea instead. I know caffeine isn't great for you either but one vice at a time!

I'm also addicted. I love Diet Coke and drink a lot of it. It have never hindered my weight loss or caused me to crave real sugar. It may happen with some folks but not me. If I don't have any I will drink iced tea.

I try not to drink more than 2 20 ounce bottles a day but when I have a case of cans I can easily drink 5 cans in one day.

Mark Hyman, MD
Practicing physician


How do you lose weight? Substitute diet drinks for sugary drinks. Eat low-fat foods. Just eat less of the bad foods -- it's all about the calories. We are told, "Just have more willpower."

These ideas are false. They are food and diet industry propaganda that make and keep us fat and sick. Lies by the food industry combined with bad government policy based on food industry lobbying are the major cause of our obesity and diabetes epidemic.

Now, more than 35 percent of Americans are obese, and almost 70 percent are overweight. This is not an accident but the result of careful marketing and money in politics.

We are told it is all about making better choices. If we all took more personal responsibility, we could stop this obesity and diabetes epidemic. We have been told there are no good or bad foods, that the key to weight loss is moderation. And, of course, if we all just exercised more, all of us would lose weight. These ideas hold us hostage.

What the Food and Diet Industry Doesn't Want You to Know

Diet Soda and Diet Drinks Make You Fat and Cause Type 2 Diabetes

Diet soda makes people fat? Really? How does that happen?

If losing weight were all about the calories, then consuming diet drinks would seem like a good idea. That's certainly what Coca-Cola wants us to believe in their new ad highlighting their efforts to fight obesity. They proudly promote the fact that they have 180 low- or no-calorie drinks and that they cut sugared drinks in schools by 90 percent.

Is that a good thing? In fact, it may be worse than having us all drink regular Coke (and the other food giants making diet drinks also push the same propaganda).

A new 14-year study of 66,118 women (supported by many other previous studies) found that the opposite seems to be true. Diet drinks may be worse than sugar-sweetened drinks, which are worse than fruit juices (but only fresh-squeezed fruit juices).

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, discovered some frightening facts that should make us all swear off diet drinks and products.

Diet sodas raised the risk of diabetes more than sugar-sweetened sodas!
Women who drank one 12-ounce diet soda had a 33 percent increased risk of Type 2 diabetes, and women who drank one 20-ounce soda had a 66 percent increased risk.
Women who drank diet sodas drank twice as much as those who drank sugar-sweetened sodas because artificial sweeteners are more addictive and are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar.
The average diet soda drinker consumes three diet drinks a day.

You might say that people who are overweight and just about to get diabetes drink more diet soda, but they scientifically controlled for body weight. And they found the artificial sweeteners increased diabetes independent of body weight!

This and other research shows how diet sodas make people fat and sick.

And that diet drinks may be even worse than regular sugar-sweetened sodas! How does that happen?

Artificial sweeteners are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar, activating our genetically-programmed preference for sweet taste more than any other substance.
They trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way. This causes your body to pump out insulin, the fat storage hormone, which lays down more belly fat.
It also confuses and slows your metabolism down, so you burn fewer calories every day.
It makes you hungrier and crave even more sugar and starchy carbs like bread and pasta.
In animal studies, the rats that consumed artificial sweeteners ate more, their metabolism slowed, and they put on 14 percent more body fat in just two weeks -- even eating fewer calories.
In population studies, there was a 200 percent increased risk of obesity in diet soda drinkers.


This is a link to the article the text above came from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mar...b_2698494.html

great article

I quit cold-turkey the first of the year. I have had 3 ( one serving) since. Some doctors contribute diet sodas, as well as regular sodas to osteoporosis. I have been drinking tea, hot as well as iced and mostly H2O. I don't feel any different, I only consumed one diet Pepsi per day. I don't drink coffee either, but love the smell of it.

I quite like coke zero. Didn't realize too much risks serious problems

As someone who has been addicted to drugs and alcohol I find it funny when people say they are addicted to stuff like sugar or diet sodas. The jury is out on whether or not diet sodas are harmful for your body.

Keep in mind that there is research showing a correlation with drinking diet sodas and type II diabetes. A correlation, however, cannot show causation. It's more likely that people who are overweight and therefore more prone to diabetes are also more likely to drink diet sodas.

If you were drinking a twelve pack a day I would say that it's time to cut back. Two cans of diet pop a day? Doesn't sound too bad. Remember that animal studies showing that diet soda harms you usually feed the test animals an ungodly amount- say the equivalent of 50 cans of soda a day to "prove" that it causes cancer.

I don't drink diet soda every day but sometimes I will have one with my breakfast in the morning. Is it going to kill me? Probably not. There is a study out there to "prove" that anything you eat, drink, or come into contact with will cause cancer, heart disease, diabetes. Live your life and don't sweat the small stuff. That's how you get screwed up in the head and start restricting too much and bingeing- take it from someone who knows.

I drink maybe a can of diet soda a day, sometimes none at all. I used to drink 2-3, but I've cut back a lot. I do love Diet Dr. Pepper & Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper though.

If you go back and read the article you will see they addressed that. It says "You might say that people who are overweight and just about to get diabetes drink more diet soda, but they scientifically controlled for body weight. And they found the artificial sweeteners increased diabetes independent of body weight!"

There's also a legitimate concern called "healthy user bias" in epidemiological studies. Diet sodas have been marginalized nutritionally for decades. People who are actively trying to be healthy usually steer clear of them for that reason (whether or not that is actually true) so naturally people who drink the most diet sodas are also the ones who may smoke, do no exercise, and eat junk food. What I'm saying is that without knowing how diet sodas actually cause diabetes and with only evidence from epidemiological studies (which provide very tenuous evidence in nutrition science) it's not reasonable to stop drinking two diet sodas a day.

As far as your brain is concerned, it's the same thing. Pleasure centers activated by vodka, cocaine, gambling, sex, sugar, tobacco, pain, doesn't matter.

And sugar can hit the brain just like cocaine, they've proven it:

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2013/...6821381873121/

Addiction is addiction, an addict is an addict. Doesn't matter what the drug of choice is, it's how the brain responds to the drug. That's why addicts switch from one addiction to another. They haven't cured the problem, just shifted its focus. So it stands to reason if the brain perceives it's getting something sweet and it provides that surge of endorphins then it doesn't matter if the sweetness is actually sugar/fructose/sucrose or aspertame/saccharin/sucralose. Heck, people go from being addicted to drugs or alcohol to something healthy, like exercise, and then turn into gym junkies and start abusing their bodies that way, too. I personally believe eating disorders might fall into that category as well. People are very good at continuing to do things that reward their brains even if the behavior itself is destructive to their bodies.

Interesting article. I wasn't sure if diet soda contributed to weight gain or not. Long ago when I was trying to lose weight, I did drink 1 or 2 diet sodas a day and did lose. I really don't care for the stuff now. It just got harder for me to finish a soda after awhile and now I just don't drink it. Sometimes I crave the carbonation but I just opt for water usually.
I would just try to drink tons of water and limit it to one per day. You might actually stop craving it with all the water you're drinking instead.

Oy vey - so much bad science in that article. Correlation does not equal causation, folks.

If you want to cut diet sodas for your health or comfort, go for it. But don't do so out of some belief that you're shooting yourself in the dietary foot by consuming them and that full sugar, other artificial sweeteners, or coffee are all more virtuous and health-sound choices than aspartame. They're *different*, and each has it's own trade offs.

As for me, I've managed to lose about 120 pounds with several daily servings of a variety of artificial sweeteners. I think I win, especially having gone from pre-diabetic to having an a1c of 4.7

@Renew,

I'm not disagreeing with you that oreos cause a pleasure sensation in the brain, and that this can cause compulsive behavior. I disagree with the idea that eating an oreo produces the same amount of pleasure as a hit of cocaine. Oreos and cocaine are not in the same ballpark when it comes to addictive potential. They've done tests on animals and time after time it's been shown that animals will prefer drugs of addiction over food. A cocaine addicted chimpanzee will forgo everything- food, water, and the company of other chimps to get more cocaine.

You simply don't see people prostituting themselves in the streets to get one more oreo. Let's also not forget that drugs of abuse can cause horrendous withdrawals. Whether or not people can become addicted to oreos, they aren't going to die if they withdraw from them. People have died withdrawing from alcohol and heroine. So no, all addictions are not equal. You don't see overweight people shooting each other over a girl scout cookie deal gone bad. There's no support for your argument in the laboratory or in real life situations.