Addicted to diet coke.. help :(

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  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    daniip_la wrote: »
    BridgetHarrington wrote: »
    I can't speak to the science end of it. But I can speak to my brother and two friends. All three were about 30-40 pounds overweight, and all three drank at least a 6 pack of Diet Coke a day. My brother was going through two 2 litre bottles in work every day! All three decided to or had to (one friend got hypersensitive to caffeine) quit cold turkey. Both friends (females) lost the 30 pounds and then some. My brother lost 55 pounds. No changes in lifestyle, diet or exercise. So you can't convince me that Diet Coke doesn't do something to the metabolism when three unrelated people quit it and made no other life or diet changes and lost a good amount of weight.

    I personally don't drink the stuff. I drink plain water, black coffee, unsweetened tea made from tea bags or unflavored seltzer water.

    I prefer to believe science. And science says that Diet Coke does not contribute to weight gain.

    Pretty much this. My anecdotal n=1 data set includes me drinking Diet Coke for over 25 years including when I was a sub 100 lb skinny high schooler, when I was a college cheerleader and in the best shape of my life, when I started gaining weight after college, when I was at my heaviest after having two children, and all through my efforts here on MFP to lose 30lbs and maintain that weight loss.

    So if looking exclusively at Diet Coke as a factor in that it would seem that it both made me gain weight and lose weight... But that's silly since it has zero calories and cannot be responsible for any direct effect on the energy balance. So I too will go with science for the win.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited September 2016
    BridgetHarrington wrote: »
    I can't speak to the science end of it. But I can speak to my brother and two friends. All three were about 30-40 pounds overweight, and all three drank at least a 6 pack of Diet Coke a day. My brother was going through two 2 litre bottles in work every day! All three decided to or had to (one friend got hypersensitive to caffeine) quit cold turkey. Both friends (females) lost the 30 pounds and then some. My brother lost 55 pounds. No changes in lifestyle, diet or exercise. So you can't convince me that Diet Coke doesn't do something to the metabolism when three unrelated people quit it and made no other life or diet changes and lost a good amount of weight.

    I personally don't drink the stuff. I drink plain water, black coffee, unsweetened tea made from tea bags or unflavored seltzer water.

    Individuals narratives are unreliable which is why we don't rely on them when we want to determine how the world works.

    I am happy for your friends weight loss but saying as advice to someone else "well Bob and Francine did X and then Y happened so if you want Y to happen you should do X" is not good advice. Why? Well for one that is evidence that X caused Y and second that is not evidence that what worked for Bob and Francine has any relevance to the person you are attempting to advise.

    This is why we do actual studies and no study has demonstrated a causitive link between drinking diet cola and gaining weight. Not to mention that doesn't even make any logical sense. To demonstrate causation you don't only have to have a correlation you also have to have mechanism and by what mechanism exactly would a 1-2 calorie beverage cause substantial weight gain.

    Change your metabolism? What does that even mean...that is some hand-waving.

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