If you stop drinking Diet soda will you lose more weight?

13

Replies

  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1308408/why-aspartame-isnt-scary/p1

    Best thread on the diet of aspartame in the entire world......
  • U2Bad1
    U2Bad1 Posts: 41 Member
    TR0berts wrote: »
    RAinWA wrote: »
    rsclause wrote: »
    Yes! Why....because all that crud they put in it dense. In reality it probably do much if any. I just think of diet drinks as empty calories and unhealthy. I also suspect that artificial sweeteners one day will be found as a link to diabetes. I just drink plain old boring water

    Diet soda has ZERO calories, therefore it has NO empty calories.

    Secondly-the American Diabetes Association recommends diet soda, because it does not affect diabetics glucose numbers. I'm a former pre-diabetic and I drink diet soda every day. My glucose numbers are consistently under 100 now ie no longer a pre-diabetic/glucose numbers are now in the normal range.

    http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-eat/making-healthy-food-choices/what-can-i-drink.html

    But if it has 0 calories it could be empty calories since there are none. I mean you could look at the calorie and it would be empty. Right?

    (Which is using as much twisted logic as those people who claim diet sodas make you gain weight.)

    Well, we do write "empty set" as: EmptySet_L.gif

    Certainly looks like a variation of 0 to me.

    I see we have a mathematician on our hands. ;)
  • Sara1791
    Sara1791 Posts: 760 Member
    grmckenzie wrote: »
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1308408/why-aspartame-isnt-scary/p1

    Best thread on the diet of aspartame in the entire world......

    I remember that thread - there are like 3 billion pages. I remember that it started off addressing whether or not aspartame specifically is a carcinogen - conclusion: not. When I'm done with my work I'll scroll through to see if it gets to other sweeteners and other issues.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    grmckenzie wrote: »
    Sara1791 wrote: »
    There is some digression and name-calling in the thread so I'm going to skip to the end - please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

    Zero calorie drinks shouldn't affect weight-loss at all, however I have read some articles that seem to suggest that the sweetness of diet drinks triggers some kind of insulin response blah blah science I don't understand and so on, thereby prompting the drinker to consume more calories elsewhere.

    I've not had a problem drinking occasional diet drinks. If I liked them more, I'd probably drink them more.

    The whole trigger thing is BS. I'll find the link where a member here goes into it in detail.

    Even if it's not for some people (I believe that some are more prone to crave sweets if drinking diet coke) there's an easy way to test it. Cut calories and see if you are having trouble meeting those calories. If you are, and it's due to craving sweets, try cutting out diet soda to see if it helps. If so, yay, cutting it out works for you.

    For me, though, I started eating 1250 and was not craving sweets (and I was barely eating any sweets then) so my occasional consumption of diet soda didn't seem to make me crave any sweets or consume any extra calories.

    On the whole "oops, I might consume extra calories" isn't going to be relevant for someone counting.

    (I think a lot of the "diet soda caused you to be fat thing" is related to (a) wanting to think that you got fat for a reason other than overeating, and (b) rather than having to watch what you eat you can fix it just by cutting out diet soda. I think spreading that claim does a real disservice to people with serious weight to lose.)
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,329 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    grmckenzie wrote: »
    Sara1791 wrote: »
    There is some digression and name-calling in the thread so I'm going to skip to the end - please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

    Zero calorie drinks shouldn't affect weight-loss at all, however I have read some articles that seem to suggest that the sweetness of diet drinks triggers some kind of insulin response blah blah science I don't understand and so on, thereby prompting the drinker to consume more calories elsewhere.

    I've not had a problem drinking occasional diet drinks. If I liked them more, I'd probably drink them more.

    The whole trigger thing is BS. I'll find the link where a member here goes into it in detail.

    Even if it's not for some people (I believe that some are more prone to crave sweets if drinking diet coke) there's an easy way to test it. Cut calories and see if you are having trouble meeting those calories. If you are, and it's due to craving sweets, try cutting out diet soda to see if it helps. If so, yay, cutting it out works for you.

    For me, though, I started eating 1250 and was not craving sweets (and I was barely eating any sweets then) so my occasional consumption of diet soda didn't seem to make me crave any sweets or consume any extra calories.

    On the whole "oops, I might consume extra calories" isn't going to be relevant for someone counting.

    (I think a lot of the "diet soda caused you to be fat thing" is related to (a) wanting to think that you got fat for a reason other than overeating, and (b) rather than having to watch what you eat you can fix it just by cutting out diet soda. I think spreading that claim does a real disservice to people with serious weight to lose.)

    I agree with this. For me personally, a diet soda reduces my cravings and fills me up. It may, and probably doesn't for others, but is has nothing to do with some insulin response, it has to do with what triggers a person to crave things. Veggies for me, even though amazingly low in calories, leave me hungry very shortly after eating them. Other people have the opposite results.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    No, you won't lose weight from cutting out diet sodas. They have no calories, and it takes calories to sustain weight.

    You will probably save money, particularly if you drink as much as I do. I loathe the taste of the local water and am not fond of plain water to start.

    I decided several years ago, on a roommate's urging, to give up diet soda for a year. I gained 10 lbs that year, despite this. I'm sure the weight gain had more to do with a serious neck injury and the subsequent inactivity than the lack of diet soda, but it certainly didn't seem to make any impact on my weight.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Sara1791 wrote: »
    There is some digression and name-calling in the thread so I'm going to skip to the end - please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

    Zero calorie drinks shouldn't affect weight-loss at all, however I have read some articles that seem to suggest that the sweetness of diet drinks triggers some kind of insulin response blah blah science I don't understand and so on, thereby prompting the drinker to consume more calories elsewhere.

    I've not had a problem drinking occasional diet drinks. If I liked them more, I'd probably drink them more.

    They don't spike your insulin. https://examine.com/nutrition/do-artificial-sweeteners-spike-insulin/ Insulin is not triggered by taste but by actual composition. There's a fraction of a gram of caloric material in it, that's going to increase insulin but it's so little, like if you dip your fingertip in honey a little bit and lick it, that would already be more than a whole bottle.
    Otherwise it would not be suitable for diabetics.

    Oh and insulin actually triggers fullness hormones, not hunger.
  • Sara1791
    Sara1791 Posts: 760 Member
    Sara1791 wrote: »
    There is some digression and name-calling in the thread so I'm going to skip to the end - please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

    Zero calorie drinks shouldn't affect weight-loss at all, however I have read some articles that seem to suggest that the sweetness of diet drinks triggers some kind of insulin response blah blah science I don't understand and so on, thereby prompting the drinker to consume more calories elsewhere.

    I've not had a problem drinking occasional diet drinks. If I liked them more, I'd probably drink them more.

    They don't spike your insulin. https://examine.com/nutrition/do-artificial-sweeteners-spike-insulin/ Insulin is not triggered by taste but by actual composition. There's a fraction of a gram of caloric material in it, that's going to increase insulin but it's so little, like if you dip your fingertip in honey a little bit and lick it, that would already be more than a whole bottle.
    Otherwise it would not be suitable for diabetics.

    Oh and insulin actually triggers fullness hormones, not hunger.
    Thanks. Just to be clear, I'm just adding to the discussion to make sure this facet gets covered. I appreciate the information you've provided.
  • groetzinger659
    groetzinger659 Posts: 47 Member
    kejw08 wrote: »
    I have seen studies ( it's been a long time, so can't link) that suggest that the aspertame and artificial sweeteners they put in diet sodas trigger a hunger response and lead to eating more which leads to weight gain. On there own though, no they won't as long as you are careful to not eat more

    Yes this is true. There were several studies that the artificial chemicals triggers a hunger response in the brain.

    I quit diet Coke in aug 2015. I tapered from 2L bottle over 14 days. I feel better without it but miss the caffeine. I detest coffee but I feel drinking coffee is no different than any other beverage.

    If you want to stop=taper down first. otherwise you will get headaches and general yucks. I drank this crap from 2001 to 2015. So it was a big deal to me when I finally cut the cord.
  • daniip_la
    daniip_la Posts: 678 Member
    richln wrote: »
    Heads of the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, US Food and Drug Administration, and the USDA (who make the official US Dietary Guidelines), all confirm that diet sodas make you gain weight.
    [1],[2],[3]


    Nice references. I trust that source, 100%. /s

    kejw08 wrote: »
    I have seen studies ( it's been a long time, so can't link) that suggest that the aspertame and artificial sweeteners they put in diet sodas trigger a hunger response and lead to eating more which leads to weight gain. On there own though, no they won't as long as you are careful to not eat more

    Yes this is true. There were several studies that the artificial chemicals triggers a hunger response in the brain.

    I quit diet Coke in aug 2015. I tapered from 2L bottle over 14 days. I feel better without it but miss the caffeine. I detest coffee but I feel drinking coffee is no different than any other beverage.

    If you want to stop=taper down first. otherwise you will get headaches and general yucks. I drank this crap from 2001 to 2015. So it was a big deal to me when I finally cut the cord.

    Provide these sources, please. Links to peer-reviewed, scientific journals.
  • sheilafaye777
    sheilafaye777 Posts: 2 Member
    edited December 2016
    https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=diet+soda+and+weight+gain

    If you like the bubble factor of soda, try flavored seltzer (Polar has the best flavors IMO) it has no added sweeteners, sodium, anything... just carbonated water and natural flavor.

    As @Hornsby illustrated, there is support on the internet for pretty much any silly theory.

    A Google search is not sufficient.

    .... a Google search is sufficient.. if you read the articles that come up from reliable sources... WebMD, etc. You still need to check sources and fact check.. just because a search produces results it doesn't mean that it is true.

    And... there is a big difference between "do artificial sweeteners cause weight gain" and "is the earth flat"
  • leajas1
    leajas1 Posts: 823 Member
    Hornsby wrote: »
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    This is a loaded question. But, all other things being unchanged, dropping diet soft drinks will NOT make you lose any weight. However, there are those (like myself) that believe that diet drinks can be just as addictive as regular drinks, due to the chemicals that are used to replace the sugar (corn syrup) in other drinks. So, I would look at giving up soft drinks ALL TOGETHER, not just cutting out diet OR regular. I only drink coffee (black), water, and unsweetened tea. Occasionally, I will have a beer or 3 if I'm out with friends, and I don't do it often enough to warrant drinking low-calorie, or low-carb beers. I just drink the normal beers, because like I said, I only drink maybe 2-3 a month.

    Yes, they both can be addictive because caffeine. Not sure how black coffee will help that though...

    While caffeine can be addictive, a cup of black coffee is not even in the same ball park as soft drinks where health benefits/drawbacks are concerned.
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    This is a loaded question. But, all other things being unchanged, dropping diet soft drinks will NOT make you lose any weight. However, there are those (like myself) that believe that diet drinks can be just as addictive as regular drinks, due to the chemicals that are used to replace the sugar (corn syrup) in other drinks. So, I would look at giving up soft drinks ALL TOGETHER, not just cutting out diet OR regular. I only drink coffee (black), water, and unsweetened tea. Occasionally, I will have a beer or 3 if I'm out with friends, and I don't do it often enough to warrant drinking low-calorie, or low-carb beers. I just drink the normal beers, because like I said, I only drink maybe 2-3 a month.

    Giving up soft drinks altogether due to their potentially addictive nature, but continuing to drink coffee and beer. I don't know . . .

    I drink 10 oz of coffee in the morning before my workout for a little kick (it is 4:30 after all). Drinking 2-3 beers over a 30 day period hardly qualifies as being a "beer drinker."


    Just a little every morning so you can function. You can stop any time you want to...right?
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    kejw08 wrote: »
    I have seen studies ( it's been a long time, so can't link) that suggest that the aspertame and artificial sweeteners they put in diet sodas trigger a hunger response and lead to eating more which leads to weight gain. On there own though, no they won't as long as you are careful to not eat more

    Yes this is true. There were several studies that the artificial chemicals triggers a hunger response in the brain.

    No, they don't show this. It's a theory and there is likely some individual variability. Does this happen to some people? It might.

    I don't get why people who are in theory counting calories would trust some study saying that people might eat more if they drink diet soda (maybe because they feel less satiated, maybe for various other reasons), vs their actual experience. Again, as I said above, if you are concerned that it makes you hungrier, see if you have a problem with hunger and if you do try dropping diet soda.

    I don't drink much diet soda because I already drink too much coffee (which I love excessively) and don't need MORE caffeine in my life, but IME it doesn't make me hungrier at all. When I started MFP I was eating 1250 without problem and occasionally having diet Coke and I didn't have more problems sticking to my calorie limit when I did. In fact, as with coffee, if I wanted a snack in the middle of the day it would usually satisfy me without needing to consume any calories.

    Of course, I never had 2L in a day, that does seem kind of crazy excessive and I wouldn't recommend it. As with many other MFP topics, people use their own immoderate consumption to tell others that they shouldn't consume something even in moderation.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    cityruss wrote: »
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    Hornsby wrote: »
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    Hornsby wrote: »
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    This is a loaded question. But, all other things being unchanged, dropping diet soft drinks will NOT make you lose any weight. However, there are those (like myself) that believe that diet drinks can be just as addictive as regular drinks, due to the chemicals that are used to replace the sugar (corn syrup) in other drinks. So, I would look at giving up soft drinks ALL TOGETHER, not just cutting out diet OR regular. I only drink coffee (black), water, and unsweetened tea. Occasionally, I will have a beer or 3 if I'm out with friends, and I don't do it often enough to warrant drinking low-calorie, or low-carb beers. I just drink the normal beers, because like I said, I only drink maybe 2-3 a month.

    Yes, they both can be addictive because caffeine. Not sure how black coffee will help that though...

    While caffeine can be addictive, a cup of black coffee is not even in the same ball park as soft drinks where health benefits/drawbacks are concerned.
    rpsetser2 wrote: »
    This is a loaded question. But, all other things being unchanged, dropping diet soft drinks will NOT make you lose any weight. However, there are those (like myself) that believe that diet drinks can be just as addictive as regular drinks, due to the chemicals that are used to replace the sugar (corn syrup) in other drinks. So, I would look at giving up soft drinks ALL TOGETHER, not just cutting out diet OR regular. I only drink coffee (black), water, and unsweetened tea. Occasionally, I will have a beer or 3 if I'm out with friends, and I don't do it often enough to warrant drinking low-calorie, or low-carb beers. I just drink the normal beers, because like I said, I only drink maybe 2-3 a month.

    Giving up soft drinks altogether due to their potentially addictive nature, but continuing to drink coffee and beer. I don't know . . .

    I drink 10 oz of coffee in the morning before my workout for a little kick (it is 4:30 after all). Drinking 2-3 beers over a 30 day period hardly qualifies as being a "beer drinker."


    Caffeine is the only thing in soda that is even remotely addictive though. So it's kinda of a weird statement to say I was addicted to soda, but I drink coffee. Similarly, it would be funny if someone said I'm not an alcoholic, I only drink beer...

    If you think caffeine is the ONLY addictive thing in soft drinks, you are very misinformed.

    Please, inform us. Do you have research to back up your claims?

    Yes. Google "effects of sugar or hfcs" and you will have all the evidence/research you need to keep you busy for days.

    You can also Google "dangers of microwave ovens" and have tons of literature to support this (extremely silly) claim. You have to do better than that.

    The dangers of putting a can of diet soda in the microwave is very real.

    Can confirm

    https://youtu.be/eFsZ-GWB8Gk

    But that's regular Pepsi, not diet Pepsi.

    Myth: Unconfirmed.

    My husband once put a can of Pepsi max in the freezer to cool it down quicker - he forgot about it and then in middle of night - bang!! - explosion!! :o

    True story.

    Not sure if it confirms danger of diet soda or dangers of freezers

    Or of husbands :*

    My husband does this at least 3-4 times a year. So husband-danger is real.

    On the bright side, it ensures that my freezer is always super-clean because we have to take everything out and wipe it down post-explosion. So maybe he's really doing us a favor?
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    Sara1791 wrote: »
    There is some digression and name-calling in the thread so I'm going to skip to the end - please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

    Zero calorie drinks shouldn't affect weight-loss at all, however I have read some articles that seem to suggest that the sweetness of diet drinks triggers some kind of insulin response blah blah science I don't understand and so on, thereby prompting the drinker to consume more calories elsewhere.

    I've not had a problem drinking occasional diet drinks. If I liked them more, I'd probably drink them more.

    It was only found in rat studies, and not reproducible in humans.

    https://examine.com/nutrition/do-artificial-sweeteners-spike-insulin/
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    Sara1791 wrote: »
    There is some digression and name-calling in the thread so I'm going to skip to the end - please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

    Zero calorie drinks shouldn't affect weight-loss at all, however I have read some articles that seem to suggest that the sweetness of diet drinks triggers some kind of insulin response blah blah science I don't understand and so on, thereby prompting the drinker to consume more calories elsewhere.

    I've not had a problem drinking occasional diet drinks. If I liked them more, I'd probably drink them more.

    They don't spike your insulin. https://examine.com/nutrition/do-artificial-sweeteners-spike-insulin/ Insulin is not triggered by taste but by actual composition. There's a fraction of a gram of caloric material in it, that's going to increase insulin but it's so little, like if you dip your fingertip in honey a little bit and lick it, that would already be more than a whole bottle.
    Otherwise it would not be suitable for diabetics.

    Oh and insulin actually triggers fullness hormones, not hunger.

    Heh. I just posted the same article. Great minds and all that.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,487 Member
    I quit drinking diet soda about 2 years ago. It has absolutely no effect on my weight, health or anything else.
  • Running_and_Coffee
    Running_and_Coffee Posts: 811 Member
    Not literally...however, I did quit diet soda a few years ago as part of a "eat cleaner ingredients" effort, and the lasting impact on me has been being more conscious of what I eat. Eating Doritos and Oreos or a frozen Lean Cuisine seems a little more "normal" when you regularly ingest black fizzy fake stuff every day. I am thinner than I was when I drank diet soda regularly, not because the soda itself had calories but because my mindset has changed. I also cut out Splenda and began making my own sauces, jellies, etc.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,329 Member
    https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=diet+soda+and+weight+gain

    If you like the bubble factor of soda, try flavored seltzer (Polar has the best flavors IMO) it has no added sweeteners, sodium, anything... just carbonated water and natural flavor.

    As @Hornsby illustrated, there is support on the internet for pretty much any silly theory.

    A Google search is not sufficient.

    .... a Google search is sufficient.. if you read the articles that come up from reliable sources... WebMD, etc. You still need to check sources and fact check.. just because a search produces results it doesn't mean that it is true.

    And... there is a big difference between "do artificial sweeteners cause weight gain" and "is the earth flat"

    I'm not a fan of WebMD but from that site, in reference to diet soda-

    http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diet-sodas-and-weight-gain-not-so-fast#4

    http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20161110/daily-can-of-soda-boosts-odds-for-prediabetes-study-finds#1

    eta: second article focuses mostly on regular soda, but there a couple spots where it talks about diet soda and pre-diabetes. This is especially interesting to me, as a former prediabetic and a frequent drinker of diet soda :)

    Quote from the second article, "However, a can of diet soda every day does not boost prediabetes risk, the researchers found."

    Note the bold and italics.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    storyjorie wrote: »
    Not literally...however, I did quit diet soda a few years ago as part of a "eat cleaner ingredients" effort, and the lasting impact on me has been being more conscious of what I eat. Eating Doritos and Oreos or a frozen Lean Cuisine seems a little more "normal" when you regularly ingest black fizzy fake stuff every day. I am thinner than I was when I drank diet soda regularly, not because the soda itself had calories but because my mindset has changed. I also cut out Splenda and began making my own sauces, jellies, etc.

    I don't think anyone contests that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. If eliminating diet soda causes one to eliminate other foods as well and that creates a deficit or a larger deficit, weight loss will be the result.

    But the same thing could happen if someone replaced regular soda with diet soda (and didn't increase calories in other areas) or drank regular soda in the context of a diet that had a calorie deficit and so on and so on.

    So if someone finds it easier to have a deficit when they aren't drinking diet soda, that person will lose more weight. But it isn't because of the diet soda itself -- it's the other changes that are driving it.
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