Diet Soda Addiction
 

Hello,

Does anyone else seem to be addicted to diet sodas? I feel like I have to drink one everyday. If I don't I'll start having withdrawl. Also, when I drink the soda, I have a tendency to eat junk food and/or candy. I've heard some pretty bad stuff about aspartame (e.g. http://www.aspartamekills.com/). I drink plenty of liquids, meaning I drink more then enough water a day.

Anyone else have problems like this? Any solutions? I really like bubbly and cold drinks. I buy sparkling mineral water often. While the mineral water helps, I still get the "jones" for diet drinks (in particular Diet Coke). :(

Have you tried the Diet Coke with Splenda? I love it vastly more than I ever loved regular Diet Coke (and that's saying a lot). It seems to me that more and more companies are switching to Splenda as a sweetener (Waist Watcher soda comes to mind) and to me that's a good thing since it tastes sooo much better to me.

I wouldn't consider myself addicted, but I drink a lot of diet pop everyday. Yesterday I drank half of a 2 liter of the new diet berries & cream Dr. Pepper within a span of 10 minutes. I also drink many cups of tea a day and I put 3 packets of Equal or Sweet N Low in each cup. It hasn't had any kind of negative effect for me, so I completely overindulge. And it definitely hasn't hindered my weight loss. I've read about the possible dangers of aspartame, but I tend to agree that it's harmless.

But since you said it triggers you to eat badly, I'd recommend to you to stay away from it. I've heard of it triggering a sugar craving because of its sweetness.

Stick with the sparkling water, and maybe just save the pop for rare occasions.

I have tried that version of Diet Coke. I do like it also. I think my biggest problem is being addicted to the drinks in the first place. I can't just get by with water. I need to have a drink during lunch, between lunch and dinner, etc. I am not a coffee/"hot drink" kind a of person. Sometimes I grab a soda on my way to work in the morning.

I am committing to not drinking soda for one day then!

Thanks! :carrot:

I drink 2 cans of Pepsi Max a day - it fills me up and gives me something to do!! :lol: However I try to limit it to 2 cans and on a weekend I'll probably go without any, depends how tired I feel and how much I want to eat other junk!

For me, it satisfies the junk food craving, because I know it's not got anything in it that my body needs, but it tastes nice and it has no calories :D

There's a lot of debate on these boards as to whether it's good/bad/indiferent for you! I think it's a matter of preference. However, if you start getting "withdrawal" symptoms - and it's encouraging you to eat more junk, then I would cut back. If you still want a soda, try caffeine-free, that should stop withdrawals happening once you're weened off the caffeine ;)

i am addicted to diet soda but i believe it has slowed my weight loss down so i am going to try to cut back and drink more tea and water

I recently went cold turkey on regular sodas and didn't give too much thought to diet till last week when I HAD to have a soda! Diet Coke. I didn't drink it all day, only a glass at dinner. The very first night I had it with dinner I started craving sweets after dinner, which is something I hadn't had a problem with in a few weeks...I won't be finishing off that Diet Coke! LOL. And the natural sugars (fruit, yogurt..stuff like that) didn't seem to fill the craving, I could have gone to the sugar bowl and eaten it with a spoon!

Now I remember why I was having the diet stuff everynight! The caffiene!!! I was waking up in the mornings with awful caffiene headaches!

Kim

Aspartame has been around longer than splenda and recent studies show there's no link between aspartame and cancer risk. However, splenda (sucralose) is fairly new and has had some concerns raised about it.

Sucralose is produced by chlorinating sugar (sucrose). This involves chemically changing the structure of the sugar molecules by substituting three chlorine atoms for three hydroxyl groups.

Few human studies of safety have been published on sucralose. One small study of diabetic patients using the sweetener showed a statistically significant increase in glycosylated hemoglobin (Hba1C), which is a marker of long-term blood glucose levels and is used to assess glycemic control in diabetic patients. According to the FDA, "increases in glycosolation in hemoglobin imply lessening of control of diabetes."

There have been 598 studies on aspartame. Only 19 on sucralose. Of those 19 studies, the sucralose caused many problems in mice, rats and rabbits. Now, I don't particularly believe all these studies (of COURSE any chemical is going to cause problems in these poor tiny animals, especially when force-fed massive amounts) I'm just posting about what I've heard. Some of the problems found are as follows:

Shrunken thymus glands (up to 40% shrinkage)
Enlarged liver and kidneys.
Atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus
Increased cecal weight
Reduced growth rate
Decreased red blood cell count
Hyperplasia of the pelvis
Extension of the pregnancy period
Aborted pregnancy
Decreased fetal body weights and placental weights
Diarrhea

Do I eat products with splenda? Yes. Have I ever had any problems? No. I've never had any problems with aspartame either and I've been ingesting it for years.

Other reports on sucralose:

The FDA acknowledges that sucralose "is produced at an approximate purity of 98%." While that may sound pretty pure, just what is in that other 2%? It turns out that the final sucralose product contains small amounts of potentially dangerous substances such as:


Heavy Metals (e.g., Lead)
Arsenic
Triphenilphosphine Oxide
Methanol
Chlorinated Disaccharides
Chlorinated Monosaccharide

Although manufacturing guidelines do specify limits on these substances there is no guarantee that such limits will always be met.

And just to add - I'm not bashing splenda, nor am I saying aspartame is better. I'm just saying that it hasn't been around long enough for us to know everything. Although I DO eat products that contain splenda, I try to keep from eating too much of it. I just have this sinking feeling we don't know enough about it yet.

Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Yikes! That's interesting stuff about Splenda! I only just started buying it, and I really like it. Part of me is thinking whether I should just ween myself of the sweet taste anyway... If I get used to stuff without Splenda, then I'll always find "real sugar" foods far to sweet KWIM? I also find that I use a lot more Splenda than I would use of sugar, perhaps because there's "no calories" in it. ;)

Interesting, thanks for digging up those articles Linda!

No problem :)

I've been doing some reading on it, but I don't allow myself to take it all to heart. It's a given that there's gonna be risks with any new product, especially one that messes with chemicals and molecular structure, lol.

That's just damn scary.

I gave up soda almost two years ago. I was drinking any where from 3 to 4 cans a day. Finally I just went cold turkey and drank water. Now I love the walmart brand of there flavored water. Now I hate soda and I can not stand the taste of it.

Personally, I think people freak out way too much about the artificial stuff. Those of you who are organic, purity people, please don't start ragging on me about it, it is just my opinion. BUT, the biggest thing to remember about soft drinks is they are LOADED with sodium so you need to watch that as it will definitely make you retain water and may make it hard to lose. There is also the caffeine, and believe me, like one of the other posters said, the caffeine headaches are UNBELIEVABLE if you quit drinks with it in them!

When you are dieting, there are so few things that you can really enjoy from your "former" life on a regular basis so my suggestion would be just to cut back some. I was a regular soda drinker and drank gallons and I mean gallons a day as I don't care for tea or coffee. I kicked the habit (again) and only have a diet soda when I am having something like burgers or something like that and with my occasional chip snack or whatever.

Some people in this world do, yes. That's why I said I don't take it all to heart. I recall years ago when they were saying mustard caused cancer.

Uh-huh. Sure.

I just checked out my can of Pepsi Max - Sodium, trace. :chin: I think it's the diuretic (sp?) effect of the caffeine that gives that dehydrated effect. Which reminds me, I must go get me some more water! ;)

This is probably similar to my situation. :hug:

Does anyone here like the Crystal Geyser flavored sparkling mineral water line? It's cheaper then Pierre and Pellegrino and has several flavors. Has anyone heard anything bad about drinking these?

You stole my thoughts right from my head! When I heard about spledna was made (about a year ago) I figured it couldn't be that good for me either. Doesn't mean I don't drink it...

I wouldn't say I am ADDICTED to diet soda but I do enjoy it. The cold, bubbly taste. I have tried mineral water, and carbanted jucies and they just dont do it for me. I used to drink SO much diet pop, probably 3-6 cans a day! My favourtie is Diet Pepsi. Just lately I find myself drinking a lot less. I limit myself to one can a day and don't let myself have it if I dont feel I have had enough water for the day (4-6 liters). Some nights I don't even feel like one anymore and when I do have one I usually don't even finish it. I drink more of it on weekends when I find it harder to get in my water (have a water cooler at work). I really don't believe it is hurting me any and I just make sure to get in my water.

However; if I want something like a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, I use real sugar and just a little bit.

I had to give up soda a month and a half ago when I found out I had acid reflux disease. It was really, really hard on me for a couple of days, but my Dr. insisted I pretty much had to go cold turkey. If you can make it past 2 days not drinking it, I think you'll pretty much lose your cravings for them. The last time I had a sip of my sister's diet coke (maybe 4 weeks ago), the carbonation felt like it burned and it didn't taste at all like I remembered. It was easy for me to stick with water after that. ;) Now all I drink is water and tea, and I feel a lot better!

Umm...no :p My can of Coke Zero has 40mg of sodium. Recommended amount of sodium for a day is up to 2400mg. I certainly wouldn't consider that to be LOADED (and that's in a can, which is actually more than a typical serving size of 8oz). So even at 10 servings of soda a day, that's only 400mg, about 1/6 of what you're "allowed" in a day.

As for the caffeine, there is typically less than half the amount of caffeine in a serving of soda as is found in a cup of coffee. Studies have shown that the amount of caffeine in a soda is not enough to even remove from your body the amount of water that was in that same soda. If you worry about becoming addicted to caffeine, then, umm, try decaffeinated sodas :) I know both Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi come in caffeine-free varieties.

As for the sweeteners, I don't worry about them. I would like to point out, though, that Splenda DOES have calories if you're using more than just a single serving at a time (packet and granular Splenda have 2 calories per teaspoon). Maybe not a lot, but it can probably add up if you use it in everything.

The only reason I would recommend "quitting" diet soda is if it causes you to crave additional sweets, like the original poster mentioned. In this case, I would maybe try weening yourself off it, though, instead of going cold turkey. Cut back by a serving or two a day each week until you're off the junk ;)

I completely second this. Read my post on the "Foods that may promote weight loss" thread in the nutrition/ food forum.

I don;t have that much sweetner, but I do occasionally and it doesnt hurt. There is NO link between aspartame and cancer, I dont know where the hill-billys online get that sort of information. Understanding the actual mechanism of biochemical degradation of synthetic sweeteners, I see absolutely no harm in synthetic sugars.

If you like sugar, have sugar. If you like sweetener, have sweetener. I hear too much aspartame bashing on 3FC and I can tell you it seems ridicuous where people get their information.

I wondered about that comment too. Now, if one can of soda had 300 mg's of sodium each, then yeah, I'd say that's a little too much. But 40 mg is nothing. For that to add up to 300 mg's, you'd have to drink 7 or 8 sodas a day.

Yeah! Sing it sister! If you like Brad Pitt, have Brad Pitt! If you like George Clooney, have George Clooney. And if you're really hungry, have both. :D

Right. That's why I normally read these studies and shrug them off. Sure, if you slam a rat with gallons of a certain substance every day, of course they're going to develop problems. And some people DO have particular 'allergies' to sweeteners. I simply don't ingest too much of one thing, regardless of what it is. Many of the products I buy are sugar-free. And some aren't.

But get this, my husband doesn't want me giving my son diet soda. He heard that study that aspartame causes brain damage in children or something crazy like that. My son is only allowed one soda a day. Some days he doesn't have any at all. I don't see how one diet soda per day is going to hurt. My husband says he's better off with the regular sugar because it doesn't contain any chemicals.

Whatever.

Man- does he ever look at labels or ingredients? EVERYTHING IS A CHEMICAL. WE ARE CHEMICALS. Sorry, but he really needs to do his hw before he makes such a statement. Even regular soda has chemicals, I mean how does he think its made? Like its plucked off a tree? My god...:dizzy:

I know, I roll my eyes at him when he starts in on that. He doesn't want our son drinking diet soda, but as we speak he's sitting in the living room eating a footlong chili dog from Dairy Queen.

lmao

*SMACK*

(pssst - when my husband isn't around, I let my son drink the diet stuff)

I try and cut his sugar anywhere I can.

No diet drinks today! I think I am going to try going cold turkey. Buying soda is just another expense that I shouldn't waste money on.

Well I am a firm believer in getting rid of the aspertame and stuff like it ... AND sodas... from our diets! And I used to be the worst ever... had one with me all the time. I just stopped drinking all pop almost completely several years ago and have never regretted it!! Smart smart move... AND I save $$$ LOL

I dropped all soda including diet soda when I started my life style change. I'll still have a sip here and there...but you know what? I dont even want or need it anymore. But if you have to have something have you tried Diet Rite? I heard it has splenda in it.

Thanks for the support Misti! I'll let you all know how it goes.

Good! I'll be looking forward to hearing!!! You go!!

I did an extensive study on aspertame and nutrasweet, etc... since then I will hardly touch the stuff!! :(

Misti, I worked in a laboratory (yes, these are where all those scientific studies come from, those publications, those in depth statistics that go into the NYTIMES) and found nothing wrong with aspartame or splenda. This is the only reason why the FDA approves of it. As chemicals, there ARE POTENTIAL reactions due to the properties they exhibit but to say that you stay away from them since you've read articles...... well I'm telling you now that it may or may not be true. As an inspiring statistician, I can tell you that 1 experiment done by 2 different people can very well yield different events. In that case, I can understand your refrain from sweeteners, but seriously-

90.0% cases of all aspartame related side effects are headaches. People DO get cancer whether or not they have sweetener. I don't understand where people get this "IT CAUSES" or "_____ is LINKED with _____" Statistics mean something and nothing at the same time- when a case is in an isolated environment and every factor is controlled, thats only when something can be proven with statistics. BUT WHEN YOU ALL KNOW THAT BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS ARE MULTIFACTORIAL AND NON-ISOLATED, how can anything be relevant without it being over 66% in correlation tests??? I'm almost going to give up trying to convince you guys that science isnt always consistent. It's funny, because if I told you that 95% of aspartame cases were headaches but 5% reported they had cancer even if they had genetic history, everyone will have linger in their heads "OH MY GOD!! I MIGHT BE THAT 5%!!!!"

Thats fine. Whatever, I'd rather have my aspartame and not get DIABETES.
(you see, if anyone can use the aspartame-cancer argument, I can use the sugar-diabetes argument. And you know what? SUGAR INTAKE IS correlated with diabetes, unlike the aspartame-cancer . And in BOTH CASES, you must consume a crap load of the chemical to see a side effect- and I guarantee you that you'll have to consume a lottttttt more aspartame to see any effect then consuming a large amount of sugar regularly to get diabetes.)

Well...I'm one who has flip-flopped on the asparthame issue. I cut it out 100% and after looking into it further I think that it's ok in moderation (like most other things) I certainly don't think you should live on it but occasionally I think that most legitimate research has cleared it. Yes, some people do get headaches etc. directly from asparthame so it's unfair to say there is NO correlation. It's in the same way that I get a sore stomach from drinking milk but not everyone does. Some people have sensitivities to certain foods. I believe it's also being reccomended that pregnant women not consume asparthame as it can be harmful to the baby's development. Well, in my opinion, if a small dose can be bad for a baby obviously I don't want to take it in unlimited qualities.

Not sure if I actually said anything in this post but I just had a few thoughts on it. Anyway, veggie lover weighs 110 pounds so I'm probably pretty likely to do whatever she says will get me down to size 1. (Just kidding...mostly )

It all boils down to personal choice. If you want to drink it, then drink it. If you don't, then don't.

;)

i agree. personally i have to have a glass in the morning to get a boost of energy.

I love that there are people here who have the same thoughts on this as I do. I don't believe all the hype about sweeteners causing this disease or that disease. I just don't see that anyone has done enough research to prove anything.

I used to drink about 4-5 diet Cokes a day. Then I changed my lifestyle and cut out all drinks except water. I just now, after 17 weeks, have brought back diet sodas. I only drink one can a day. I drink 34 oz of water in the morning. I then drink my one can of soda. Then I drink another 34 oz of water the rest of the day. Some days I may want my soda with dinner, then I'll drink my 68 oz of water before dinner. I don't have any problems, no headaches, etc.

There are alot of different cancers out there. Some are genetic, some are caused by viruses, and some are caused by unknown things. I had HPV about 4 years ago. That caused me to get early stages of cervical cancer. I do NOT blame this on what I ate or drank. It's caused by a virus. I'm doing really well now with it. On a side note: I do highly recommed getting pap smears every year since that is the only way to know if you have HPV. Sorry about the tangent... I just had to say it.

<<<<raises her diet Dr Pepper and says "Here! Here!"

I agree, I've never had an issue with it either.

I was one of the biggest soda fiends in history - Mountain Dew all the way baby. I probably drank 1 1/2 Liters by myself.

When I switched off soda, I went to Propel Flavored Fitness Water (grape or black cherry).

WAYYYY few calories than soda, and no caffeine or carbonation. It has some nutrients (or so it says) - I just loved the taste. Eventually switched to plain water to save money - also, I felt ready to.

Now I have a sip of DH's soda once every 3 months or so - and don't even like it.

It helped lose weight, feel better and look better - also, way less heartburn.

I'm addicted to caffiene and soda is my favorite way to get it. I haven't had any soda for almost a week. It's hard because it's too hot to drink coffee right now for most of the day. I love "energy" drinks too. There was a 12 pack of Vault on sale at Target the other day, it was so hard not to buy it. It was a really good deal.
Giving up soda and "energy" drinks is going to be the hardest part of my new healthier life style.