Addicted to diet coke.. help :(

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  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
    edited August 2016
    vicmod wrote: »
    There is an increasing correlation between artificial sweeteners/diet sodas and weight gain and type 2 diabetes. One study I recently read noted that when we eat sweet things our digestive tracts increase the absorption of calories and that this may be one factor in weight gain. "Sweet" includes artificial sweeteners. If I can find that article I'll post a link.

    The brain regulates hunger and satiety. It is a super complex process. No one on this site knows definitively the effects of artificial sweeteners on this process. With the increasing number of studies showing an increased risk for weight gain and diabetes (and therefore cardiovascular disease) we can make a strong guess that there is a negative effect on our metabolism. It's not worth the risk for me.

    The idea that nothing is wrong with the regular consumption of sugary or diet sodas or that they don't cause side effects is ridiculous. Addiction is not normal. Neither are rotting teeth, digestive difficulties, kidney stones, nor the cellular damage that the preservatives are known to cause.

    Here are easy links I've found regarding this issue from reasonably reputable sources.
    http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/artificial-sweeteners-and-weight-gain/?_r=0 https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/artificial-sweeteners/
    http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/artificial-sweeteners-sugar-free-but-at-what-cost-201207165030
    http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you

    That health.harvard.edu blog (via a different contributor) also said that apps like MyFitnessPal don't help people lose weight, so out the window with that.
  • Kmj102
    Kmj102 Posts: 57 Member


    Diet soda is 98% water. [/quote]



    Diet Soda and Daily Water Requirement

    You may be surprised to know that because beverages such as diet soda are composed primarily of water, they do count towards your daily water requirement. However, you must take into consideration diet soda additives such as sodium and caffeine that may actually remove water from your body. Because of this, it's crucial that you avoid relying solely on diet soda to meet your daily recommended water intake.

  • JayWillisBBA_AATCIS_BA_AAMath
    JayWillisBBA_AATCIS_BA_AAMath Posts: 98 Member
    edited August 2016
    Nope. I'm not going to post.
  • JayWillisBBA_AATCIS_BA_AAMath
    JayWillisBBA_AATCIS_BA_AAMath Posts: 98 Member
    edited August 2016
    Nope. I'm not going to post.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    JayWillis99 wrote: »
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    Detoxing [...]. :)
    Most exercise shows, on primetime television networks, start with the same "detoxing" routine. They over-exert the competitors on cardio workouts until they complain, faint or throw-up. The last two are examples of critical detoxing. But there are different types of detoxing and different time-schedules for detoxing. I will agree that there are truths and falsehoods about detoxing also. But it is safe to say that if you have a large meal before a workout, your body is toxic and will purge. Agreed?

    Only if you ate rat poison for dinner. ;)
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    JayWillis99 wrote: »
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    Detoxing [...]. :)
    Most exercise shows, on primetime television networks, start with the same "detoxing" routine. They over-exert the competitors on cardio workouts until they complain, faint or throw-up. The last two are examples of critical detoxing. But there are different types of detoxing and different time-schedules for detoxing. I will agree that there are truths and falsehoods about detoxing also. But it is safe to say that if you have a large meal before a workout, your body is toxic and will purge. Agreed?

    Sarcasm?

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Pr1ssP wrote: »
    Diet pop is not going to kill you, but it does have some problems. 1- Too much salt. The salt is dehydrating and can cause headaches.

    Why do people think diet soda has lots of salt? Is it too difficult to actually look at a label (you don't need to buy any; it's on the net too.)
    2- Too much caffeine. The can or the bottle is more than one portion. If you have 2 or 3 of them per day, you could end up with stomach irritation and headaches.

    For me, the main purpose of drinking diet soda is to sub for a coffee or iced coffee, so this is the least of my worries. (I drink mostly water, but enjoy other things sometimes, so long as they don't have lots of calories.)
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    edited August 2016
    Kmj102 wrote: »
    Diet soda is 98% water.

    Diet Soda and Daily Water Requirement

    You may be surprised to know that because beverages such as diet soda are composed primarily of water, they do count towards your daily water requirement. However, you must take into consideration diet soda additives such as sodium and caffeine that may actually remove water from your body. Because of this, it's crucial that you avoid relying solely on diet soda to meet your daily recommended water intake.
    Or you could look at the actual ingredients and see that diet soda does not contain any more sodium than plain water and you need 3 bottles to equal the caffeine of 1 cup black coffee.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    DebSozo wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    DebSozo wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    DebSozo wrote: »
    DebSozo wrote: »
    MissJanet55 wrote: »
    I'm not one to argue on internet forums, but there is a lot of documentation.

    This science paper:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1474447/
    And this piece on safefood, although this group obviously has a point of view:
    http://www.safefood.org.nz/aspartaddict.html
    An FDA paper on aspartame toxicity:
    http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/03/jan03/012203/02p-0317_emc-000199.txt

    And many more. There are also pieces saying it is perfectly safe, so pick your poison. But one thing is sure - giving it up is not going to hurt you.



    I saw a lot of articles that say it is not harmful also. It is confusing because studies are inconclusive.

    https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/artificial-sweeteners/

    Oh! I read the Harvard article wrong. It says, "The health BENEFITS of diet drinks are inconclusive, with research showing mixed findings."

    This article is referring to all artificial sweeteners not just the aspartame in a diet Coke.

    I do worry about the toxins which are probably being handled well in smaller quantities, but what about any cumulative, long term effects?

    There are no toxins in diet coke.

    Just the excitotoxins unless those are mythological.

    Explain what you mean. Perhaps might want to look up what toxin means.

    Toxin: a poisonous substance that is a specific product of the metabolic activities of a living organism and is usually very unstable, notably toxic when introduced into the tissues.



    So what ingredient in diet soda fits that definition DebSozo? Which is a product of the metabolic activities of a living organism? Which living organism produces aspartame for example?
  • healthy491
    healthy491 Posts: 384 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    "who on this site is not a bit obsessed with the scale?"

    Honestly? Quite a few, me included. Scale weight has little to do with your overall health unless you are obese. I'm not obese so I don't care all that much about my scale weight. I do measure it, but if it doesn't go down for a while and I feel better or I've lost an inch around my waist or can do another 5 pushups then I really don't care. From your picture you aren't obese, in fact if that is you you don't even look overweight at all. So I definitely wouldn't obsess over your scale.

    Yeah I agree with you .. and yes its me in the picture .. But I cant figure out another way to see whether I've gained/lost weight
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
    healthy491 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    "who on this site is not a bit obsessed with the scale?"

    Honestly? Quite a few, me included. Scale weight has little to do with your overall health unless you are obese. I'm not obese so I don't care all that much about my scale weight. I do measure it, but if it doesn't go down for a while and I feel better or I've lost an inch around my waist or can do another 5 pushups then I really don't care. From your picture you aren't obese, in fact if that is you you don't even look overweight at all. So I definitely wouldn't obsess over your scale.

    Yeah I agree with you .. and yes its me in the picture .. But I cant figure out another way to see whether I've gained/lost weight
    Clothing fit trumps scale weight, don't you think?
  • mom22dogs
    mom22dogs Posts: 470 Member
    So people are worried about 35 mg of sodium in diet coke/pop in general, but on the other hand tell people that watching sodium isn't important unless you have a medical reason to? Sounds like some people have never actually read the label and know that you can have 3,400 mg of sodium a day. So a can of diet coke has 1% of your RDA of sodium.
  • booksandchocolate12
    booksandchocolate12 Posts: 1,741 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Pr1ssP wrote: »
    Diet pop is not going to kill you, but it does have some problems. 1- Too much salt. The salt is dehydrating and can cause headaches.

    Why do people think diet soda has lots of salt? Is it too difficult to actually look at a label (you don't need to buy any; it's on the net too.)

    Thank you! I've never understood the "lots of salt" comments. It says "low sodium" right on the can!!

    fq57st31wxa0.jpg


  • alexandriite
    alexandriite Posts: 9 Member
    Start drinking coconut water. The taste is addicting and you'll start wanting that more than diet coke. It tastes amazing and is 47 calories per 250ml. Coconut is also good for ur stomach, skin, hair and I think nails. I like innocent pure coconut water the most.
  • mariesilva726
    mariesilva726 Posts: 42 Member
    I was addicted to Coke Zero a 2 liter lasted me a day 1/2. Leading cause of headaches. Just use smaller glasses and alternate 2 waters for every glass of soda you drink.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited August 2016
    healthy491 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    "who on this site is not a bit obsessed with the scale?"

    Honestly? Quite a few, me included. Scale weight has little to do with your overall health unless you are obese. I'm not obese so I don't care all that much about my scale weight. I do measure it, but if it doesn't go down for a while and I feel better or I've lost an inch around my waist or can do another 5 pushups then I really don't care. From your picture you aren't obese, in fact if that is you you don't even look overweight at all. So I definitely wouldn't obsess over your scale.

    Yeah I agree with you .. and yes its me in the picture .. But I cant figure out another way to see whether I've gained/lost weight

    My point was unless you are substantially overweight (which you aren't) "weight" isn't so important, its more your fitness level which is going to be more determined by your athletic ability and your tape measurements and percent bodyfat. Weight is "a" measure, not "the" measure by which to gauge your fitness and its only really important if you are overweight.

    But i get it that it can be hard to ignore, especially in a culture where weight is such a focus.
  • coreyreichle
    coreyreichle Posts: 1,031 Member
    BreezeDoveal wrote: »
    It contains aspartame, which causes cancer:
    http://www.3dmusclejourney.com/aspartame-jordan-day/
    Cancer Proven from Aspartame
    Arguably the most spoken of talk point of many anti-aspartame zealots are the experiments done on rats. *The link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1392232/ provides a ton of information on studies regarding lab testing involving aspartame and rats, yielding inconclusive evidence against popularized theories. Included are a couple just to prove a point:

    In 1981, Ishii conducted research dosing aspartame to rats. He used 86 males and 86 females, dosing 0, 1, 2, or 4 g/kg bw/day from weeks 6 to 110 . The statistical variance in bodyweight discrepancy when comparing a rat to a man needs to be taken into account, and dosage would still remain proportionate to the body weight of the subject. The highest dose in this study was 4 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day. This means that for a 200 pound man (90.909 kilograms) times 4 grams of aspartame per kilo gives you…363.63 grams every single day. One final computation to get back to milligrams so we are on the same playing field as our previous studies: 1000 mg= 1 g, so that gives us 363,363 milligrams of aspartame administered to a 200 pound man. Do you remember what the average consumption of an American is? 5 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight, so for our example, 455 milligrams. The most interesting part of this would not even be the insanely high dosage of the sweetener, but that there was no increase in the incidence of brain tumors. So at literally 800 times the dose that one would consume on a day to day basis, over the duration of more than two years, there was nothing significant to compare to the control group. Just as a friendly reminder, a can of Diet Coke has 180 milligrams of aspartame.

    There were though, some studies that indicate negative effects, cancer incidences, and the like. The thing with those is that they can be easily refuted, based on the sole understanding of dosage. In a popular study used to bash this sweetener, in order for there to be a statistical significance, the dosage of aspartame used was 2,500 mg/kg, which simply is not plausible. At the end of the day, everything is toxic at the right dose. That is like getting a study published when 50 subjects aged 30-40 received a dose of 3,000 grams of salt intravenously to see the mortality rate. (Then the headlines on the news would be “Study confirms that salt may lead to an early death.”) Looking over a toxicology report showing the LD50 (essentially the dose that will kill 50% of a given population) it is easy to see that even things you would never think could bring death, can, at the right dose. News reports over the years show people overdosing on water and drugs but anything can be deadly, in the right amount. Caffeine being roughly 200 mg/kg of bodyweight and Vitamin D being 10 mg/kg. The dosage makes the poison.

    The bottom line is that there is simply not enough evidence to prove aspartame as carcinogenic over not, and even those that have even the slightest hint in their desired direction are easily picked apart and dissected down to nothing.

    So, to sum this up, I figured it might be a little easier to relate all this back to the main point, our safety as consumers.

    Oranges cause cancer in rats, too. Male rats, specifically. Should we avoid oranges?
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,641 Member
    coreyreichle wrote: »
    PennWalker wrote: »
    healthy491 wrote: »
    So today I went to a confectionery and bought a diet coke and the store owner and my dad started giving me a lecture about how its bad for me , causes diabetes , weight gain etc.
    I am kinda worried now as I am literally addicted and love it and its all I drink since I really hate water :( I drink about 4 Litres a day ( I know its a lot ). Anyone has an idea regarding what I can do ?

    Coke of all kinds is about as acidic than battery acid (I learned that in a science class). You can use it to clean rust off your car.

    http://www.livescience.com/7198-acids-popular-sodas-erode-tooth-enamel.html

    Don't tell yourself that you hate water -- give yourself a more positive message. Become a water freak. Put chilled bottles of water in your fridge. Try water with a slice of lemon or lime over ice. Buy yourself a gorgeous water bottle and carry it everywhere.

    Um, not, it's not.

    If you spill coke on your hand, you can lick it off. If you spill battery acid on your hand, skin starts dissolving. The molar content is vastly different.

    I can vouch for this. I was being driven in my dad's car by my sister and I was holding hot coffee, so I grabbed a towel off the floor to insulate my legs and hands against it. I wound up with a nasty burning rash. My dad said "duh, that towel had battery acid on it." and showed me how the towel was falling apart. I have spilled soda on my jeans and went the rest of the day wearing them. I didn't get a rash and my jeans didn't fall apart.

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