Is diet coke good for you?
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rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Can you post any studies that show a causative effect, rather than a correlation?14 -
rheddmobile wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Myself and many others here have lost weight and maintained while drinking diet soda. I drink it because I prefer to save my calories for food.
Do what works for you. Your experience is not typical. Look it up. Or ignore science, no skin off my nose. But there is actual evidence that for most people swapping to diet soda does not lead to weight loss.
They are all correlation studies. It's potential there are psychological or behavioral issues with why some people eat more calories while drinking "diet soda". It's quite possible people would rather supersize their meal than drink they calories, causing them to consume greater calories. Some may also attribute feeling hungry while consuming diet sodas. But often people don't really evaluate their diets at a low enough level (aka true root cause analysis) or have done double blind studies to support their claims.
Is diet soda good for you? Not really, but diet mt dew has helped me cut 700 calories out of my diet, kept me satiated for the taste of soda, and increased my compliance where I was able to lose 50lbs ish...13 -
rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Can you post any studies that show a causative effect, rather than a correlation?
NO. What the studies actually show is that people think that adding diet coke to their diet means they can add food as well. So before diet coke.
Lunch Coke-300 calories. Burger 400 Calories Fries 350 calories--1000 calories
After Diet Coke
Lunch Diet Coke 0 Calories Bacon Double burger 600 Calories Large Fry 450 Calories Milkshake 600 Calories--1600 Calories
It's a Psychological effect. Not a physiological effect.17 -
Good for you? Not particularly. You don't get much physical benefit out of it other than hydration, but it may be psychologically enjoyable which helps make the diet more pleasant. Bad for you? Probably not in moderation. Causes weight gain? Definitely not, at least not directly. Some people believe it makes them hungry, other people use it as a licence to eat more, and that's how weight gain happens. If you are logging your calories and are consistently within your budget, rest assured it will not cause you to gain weight.3
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
The Bacardi?
Well at least no one has claimed it's high in sodium - yet!
(Clue - it isn't.)9 -
livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
The Bacardi?
Well at least no one has claimed it's high in sodium - yet!
(Clue - it isn't.)
I am shocked that you think 85mg is not high in sodium.
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It is 0 calories and hydrates you. I would say that is pretty good. If you don't want the caffeine get the caffeine free version.5
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Alatariel75 wrote: »It's neither good for you or bad for you. It's just a 0 calorie beverage. It won't make you gain weight, as it has no calories.
This.
It was beneficial for me during my weight loss phase because I switched from regular coke to diet, and with the switch I was able to cut out a bunch of calories. I also would drink one when I had a craving for something sweet, which also saved me some calories. I still drink it now several years into maintenance because I enjoy the taste and the caffeine. I'm in excellent health and am at my goal weight-drinking diet soda hasn't had any negative affects on me.4 -
rheddmobile wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Myself and many others here have lost weight and maintained while drinking diet soda. I drink it because I prefer to save my calories for food.
Do what works for you. Your experience is not typical. Look it up. Or ignore science, no skin off my nose. But there is actual evidence that for most people swapping to diet soda does not lead to weight loss.
Her experience is the same as mine. Lost 50lbs while drinking it, now 4 years into maintaining a bmi of around a 20, while still drinking it every day. I'm also in excellent health by every marker and blood test my doctor uses.7 -
rheddmobile wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Myself and many others here have lost weight and maintained while drinking diet soda. I drink it because I prefer to save my calories for food.
Do what works for you. Your experience is not typical. Look it up. Or ignore science, no skin off my nose. But there is actual evidence that for most people swapping to diet soda does not lead to weight loss.
Well, it's my experience too. I'd speculate that many people who consume more calories are people like me before I started caring about weightloss, when I'd kid myself that I could have a banana split and a diet coke and somehow the diet coke meant that the banana split wasn't as bad for me. Or because I'd walked for an hour, I could 'reward' myself with a doughnut. It's not that the diet drinks make you fat. It's that they make you feel you have 'permission' to consume calorie-dense foods with fewer consequences.5 -
It has no nutritional benefits but it won't kill you (unless that's all you eat and drink!). Water is better for you but if you're bored with it then have a diet coke for a change.1
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rheddmobile wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Myself and many others here have lost weight and maintained while drinking diet soda. I drink it because I prefer to save my calories for food.
Do what works for you. Your experience is not typical. Look it up. Or ignore science, no skin off my nose. But there is actual evidence that for most people swapping to diet soda does not lead to weight loss.
I've read the studies. Every one of them only shows correlation, not causation. Correlation just shows that two data sets somehow correspond with each other, there's no evidence positively linking a cause to an outcome. It could be that those who consume more diet soda consume more calories because they're obese and trying to lose weight, and drinking diet soda is one way they're attempting to cut calories. It could be because, as others have mentioned, they mistakenly believe that diet soda allows them to consume more calories in other food because the soda contains less calories. But nothing in any of the studies positively establishes that diet soda causes weight gain or consumption of more calories. Correlation does not equal causation.
For example, I see a lot of obese people exercising. Therefore, I could conclude by correlation that exercise makes you obese. We all know that exercise isn't the cause of obesity, though.
Here are some other things that correlation has shown. Tell me if you believe they also show causation:
Death by falling out of a wheelchair correlate to the cost of a bag of potato chips:
Total golf course revenue correlates to the per capita consumption of cheese:
Deaths caused by lightning correlate to the per capita consumption of beef:
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rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Studies have also proven that they are beneficial with dieting. As it satiates a sugar craving. It "confusing the body's hunger response" is false. Was looking up those studies but couldn't find them. Hopefully I can run across them to give evidence to my claims.
About it being nasty, that's personal opinion. Even when I drank regular soda I always preferred sucralose or aspartame in my coffee. Why? I like my coffee sweet and the amount of sugar to achieve that same sweetness is a ridiculous amount.
The issues with diet soda lie in the whole artificial sweeteners being bad for you. Here is a video which I have posted numerous times made by Dr. Layne Norton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dod6bUZYz4w&t=104s
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Good for you? It doesn't really have any nutritional value so I couldn't say it's "good for you"...I'd say it's benign unless your drinking a ton of it then the acids could be an issue. It's zero calorie, so no...it won't make you gain weight.
I drink a couple of diet root beers most every night in lieu of my usual beer because I'm cutting some winter fluff...no problems losing about 1 Lb per week at the moment.3 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »Studies have found that those who drink diet soda consume more calories total than those who consume regular soda. It seems to confuse the body's hunger response. If you have no weight problems it won't hurt you, but why would you drink it if you had no weight problems, since it tastes nasty?
Myself and many others here have lost weight and maintained while drinking diet soda. I drink it because I prefer to save my calories for food.
Do what works for you. Your experience is not typical. Look it up. Or ignore science, no skin off my nose. But there is actual evidence that for most people swapping to diet soda does not lead to weight loss.
Well, it's my experience too. I'd speculate that many people who consume more calories are people like me before I started caring about weightloss, when I'd kid myself that I could have a banana split and a diet coke and somehow the diet coke meant that the banana split wasn't as bad for me. Or because I'd walked for an hour, I could 'reward' myself with a doughnut. It's not that the diet drinks make you fat. It's that they make you feel you have 'permission' to consume calorie-dense foods with fewer consequences.
Totally agree with this, but I'd make it even simpler -- just switching to diet coke does not lead to weight loss, as for most it's not going to be sufficient to keep you from overeating. Who is going to start drinking diet? People who think they should cut calories or who think they will be judged for drinking high cal beverages -- i.e., overweight people, disproportionately. Are these people also controlling calories in other ways? Probably not.
I switched to diet as a teen (wasn't drinking a lot then) and didn't lose weight (didn't need to), but I suspect that when I eventually developed a habit of drinking 3 cans or so a day (which I did for a while since it was free at work), that my food-related weight gain would have been even worse if I'd also been consuming high cal soda. However, for many years while drinking diet I did nothing to control my calories otherwise (at first because I did not need to, and then because I just wasn't). Diet soda had nothing to do with it.
When I decided to control how much I was eating, it was easier for me that I did not have high cal soda to worry about, and since drinks are often not perceived as food or filling eliminating calories from drinks seems to me a sensible first step. If you struggle with hitting calories due to cravings, sure, eliminate artificial sweeteners and see if it helps, but I never did struggle with hitting my calories due to wanting sweet things.
The benefit of diet soda (which I don't personally drink much of, since I prefer coffee or water, although I've recently found a diet ginger beer I enjoy) is that you don't have to cut out things that might be an easy pleasure. Doing that could make the other sacrifices (cutting calories) more difficult in an unnecessary way. This is the same reason I did not cut down on coffee when I started losing weight even though I drank too much of it (it was black so calories were not an issue).3 -
It's not going to cause you to gain weight. I love them....you might say I am addicted, although I have cut down considerably drinking them. However, sometimes I just have a craving. I think they intensify my sweet tooth and make me crave sweets, so that is bad.1
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weightloss_acc wrote: »Will it cause you to gain weight
how on earth can a zero calorie drink cause weight gain???????????
diet coke is not bad or good it is just diet coke...drink it if you enjoy it..4 -
linsey0689 wrote: »It's not good for you. But I think trying to cut out everything is not good. A couple a week IMO is okay
why is it not "good" for you?3 -
linsey0689 wrote: »It's not good for you. But I think trying to cut out everything is not good. A couple a week IMO is okay
why is it not "good" for you?
I think they mean it doesn't add nutritional benefit (vitamins, minerals or macro).2
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