Diet Drinks

lculian

So, all of you that are against aspertame - If I go check your food diary - I'm not going to see anything that's processed? Nothing that has any chemicals in it.....
Riiiight!

I'm not against aspertame, it just isn't worth the risk for me personally. Sucralose (Splenda) is in the same category as aspertame for me too. Besides headaches, it actually affected my vision and my hearing. So I gave up products containing artificial sweeteners. I wish I had the discipline to give up all processed foods. If I come to find out that the processed foods I eat are causing health probelms for me I hope I have the same discipline to give them up to. For now, if you look at my diary, you will not see any artificial sweetners, You will see sugar and some processed foods. I'm human I would like to live a long healthy life and I'm trying to make lifestyle changes in moderation to help get me healthy and keep me that way!

1Steph1

So, all of you that are against aspertame - If I go check your food diary - I'm not going to see anything that's processed? Nothing that has any chemicals in it.....
Riiiight!

I'm not against aspertame, it just isn't worth the risk for me personally. Sucralose (Splenda) is in the same category as aspertame for me too. Besides headaches, it actually affected my vision and my hearing. So I gave up products containing artificial sweeteners. I wish I had the discipline to give up all processed foods. If I come to find out that the processed foods I eat are causing health probelms for me I hope I have the same discipline to give them up to. For now, if you look at my diary, you will not see any artificial sweetners, You will see sugar and some processed foods. I'm human I would like to live a long healthy life and I'm trying to make lifestyle changes in moderation to help get me healthy and keep me that way!

I love this! Good post. I agree also its hard to avoid everything that's bad for you, but we are constantly learning, and if I found out something I was eating was really bad I would absolutely cut it out and find an alternative. Not that I dont have an occasional treat

OlenaS

I have never been much of a soda drinker in general, I hardly ever have any, maybe few times a year, even before I started working on losing weight... But I wanted to offer a suggestion - not all soda is alike, I know there are some organic sodas out there... I am not sure if those would be a better substitute while trying to give up soda altogether, as a temporary alternative, I mean...

Again, this is just an idea for those who like soda I have an organic cream soda once in a while - yum

JUSTFORME2010

I do drink Diet Coke maybe 2 a day because I like the taste not because I use it for weight loss. So I say if you enjoy crystal light or diet soda then drink it in moderation. If you are using it for weight loss then drink water or something else better for you.

Debbie

kdiamond

Everything in moderation is still the key here. I drink 2 cups of coffee a day and I have one packet of Splenda in each cup. If I actually put the sugar required to be as sweet as *I* like it, it would make a 25 calorie cup of coffee a 100 calorie cup. I also drink a diet soda every other day or so. I drink vodka once or twice a week, or a couple martinis, or a few beers. Don't get me wrong I am very into natural eating (the word "clean" drives me crazy) BUT I am not going to be all gung ho about it. I've been doing this for years and have had no adverse effects/weight gain/otherwise.

So to each their own, no, I don't think its necessarily wise to drink a 2-liter Diet Coke a day, but one every so often isn't going to break the bank either.

dumb_blondes_rock

Well for me personally, i havne'tg had any diet soday for almost a week and i had a regular soda about 3 or so days ago....i feel WAY LESS BLOATED. I never realized how bloated i was drinking soda. And I can feel the water retention has gone down A LOT. I figfure there are so many things out there that are harming us, so i'm gonna try to limit what i can to stop from harming myself. Eventually I want to become raw vegan, because anything created in a lab or pumped with chemicals is a no no

1Steph1

Well for me personally, i havne'tg had any diet soday for almost a week and i had a regular soda about 3 or so days ago....i feel WAY LESS BLOATED. I never realized how bloated i was drinking soda. And I can feel the water retention has gone down A LOT. I figfure there are so many things out there that are harming us, so i'm gonna try to limit what i can to stop from harming myself. Eventually I want to become raw vegan, because anything created in a lab or pumped with chemicals is a no no

Great attitude!! You must feel so much better! Its amazing how small changes make such a big difference Good luck going vegan, I am vegetarian now, but did vegan for a white and felt great!

Katherine1687

One battle at a time for me!!!

I love Coca Cola - the proper stuff and would drink loads of it. Switching to Pepsi Max cuts down the calories. I also add sweetner to my cereal because I like it sweet and used to add 4 or 5 heaped teaspoons each time. Not good.

Hopefully in time I can wean myself off of sweetner on my cereal and try to cut down on the Pepsi Max but at the moment it is one step too far!!

Angowen

I used to be a pop-a-holic but gave it up cold turkey since I've started my healthy lifestyle and I honestly do not miss it one bit. I was drinking 3 to 6 Coke Zeros a day. Since I'm concentrating on getting my water in, I don't even have the thirst for the soda anymore. The one thing that I've noticed is that I don't feel nearly as bloated since I've stopped drinking the soda and it sure feels good! I also think my appetite has greatly decreased because of it.

mindy2707

I totally agree with this. I had a headache almost everyday and since I have given up diet mountain dew my headaches are mostly gone. Don;t get me wrong I still have an occasional diet coke. I have noticed that after walking just a half an hour my headaches return. Does anyone know if this is normal?:happy:

Stewie316

And also, aspartame can actually make you crave sugar. That's no good for weight loss.

I never understood this. I guess everyone reacts differently, but for me sugar makes me crave sugar. I can drink a 20oz coke zero, and sip on it for over an hour and not have any sugar cravings. But if I think a regular soda, it's gone in 2 minutes and I want more and more and more. And I can't stop thinking about having another.

Listen to your body and decide what works for you.

Cathy_5011

I lose weight faster when I'm not drinking soda pops. My work outs are better and harder when I'm not drinking soda pops. There is so much that is innately bad for you in a soda, water is GOOD. Having said this, I drink about one (8 oz) a week... with something salty.

I agree. I use to drink 4-5 diet cokes a day. Once I cut down to one a day I felt less bloated and loss weight faster. But I also say if you are going to drink soda I would drink diet over regular.

Hope this helps

lordrahvin

Doing my own research on the subject recently, along with tips and advice from members of this community, it seems that most artificial sweetners do have documented harmful effects that are scary, but only in amounts far in excess of what one would practically consume. Generally, its recommended by the FDA to limit your intake of diet drinks to about 6 cans per day. This is 1% of the concentration of artificial sweetner that would be considered unsafe or harmful.

To some that means its harmful and should be avoided to the extreme. To me, as long as the amount I am consuming is considered safe, that's enough for me.

There are some people who will argue against Diet Coke in favor of natural products. I can understand this, and on the whole its usually good advice. As I get healthier and healthier, I'm sure I may even become one of those people someday. But I'm not one, and I don't balk at things because their processed, engineered, or artificially created. On the contrary, I *want* scientists working on improving our food. But it any case, that's a decision everyone will have to make for themselves, I suppose.

For some people, Diet Coke seems to have other physiological effects such as bloating, sugar fixes, sleepiness, etc. It has no such effect on me. I don't know if this is due to the variation of physiology among different people or if there's a psychological effect at work. I know, for example, that a lot of my foods taste differently since I started dieting. (Hamburgers, yuck!) I know someone who gets full just looking at food.

There seem to be two solid dietary reasons to avoid diet cokes:

1) Some kind of harmful effects on your bones. I considered this a negligible consideration because you can compensate with proper nutrition, which I'm pretty much doing anyway.

2) A rotting effect on your teeth due to the drink's acidic nature.


Even though I consider Diet Coke to be fairly healthy, based on my research and my evaluation of everyone's opinions and reasoning, I want to take care of my teeth and I just can't brush after every Diet Coke. For this reason alone I decided to cut my intake down a LOT, down to about 1 can a day, and will soon eliminate it all together in favor of green tea and sparkling water.

dumb_blondes_rock

It's your decision what you want....but here is how i got off of soda. I used to go to mcdonalds with my gf's and get a 59 cent supersized mr pibb(yes they were only 59 cents...anyone remember?) and we would do that like 2 times a day. or go to a drive in place and get a 64 ounce vanilla dr pepper.I went on medifast like 3 years ago and my dad went on nutrisystem, and we had to switch to diet sodas. We have been drinking them ever since....at least liek a liter or liek 4-5 cans a day each other diet soda. So I wanted to quit, because of the artificial sweetner, and my dad jsut switched back to regular soda. So what i did, was all the rest of the diet in my house i kept at room temperature, and when i wanted a soda i would drink it hot, so it wasn't as good anymore. And i just slowly went from like 4 cans to 3....so on and so forth. And since they were hot, that's what i would remember is how good they really weren't, and it made me opt out for more water. Now I feel better since i stopped, i don't feel like i'm a pot bellied hot mess(even though i still am, i just don't FEEL like one anymore hahah) Hope this helps any persons wanting to quit!

jeweljade

I think they aren't the greatest for you, but I do believe that they affect everyone differently. If you just go by weight loss result and bloating issues it would seem as though it didn't affect some people at all. However, even though diet drinks have never caused me to gain weight or bloat, I have noticed that the more chemicals I drink or eat, the more tired I am. I have thyroid issues, and I am finding the less preservatives and the less sodas I drink, the better I am feeling. So like I said earlier I think they affect everyone very differently but I don't think they are that great for you.

antiadipose

where is she tonight?!
dude if the aspartame wont kill u.... ur dish detergent will! drop the diet coke and start making ur own cleaning chemicals. or ull DIE!

ok im jk... referring to another thread we all just fought in.

IN MY OPINION. moderation is key. i used to drink about 12 cups of coffee every day. sleep 4 hours, repeat. and each coffee had 2 splendas and my oats had splenda, and i had 2 coke zeros at school .... those were the days of med school.
I FELT LIKE ISH!

now ive completely cut back to maybe one splenda a day if even (i use honey in tea but honey is icky in coffee- so ill have it sugarless or throw a splenda in) and maybe one diet pepsi every other day.

i feel a 100% fine. bloating is down, sugar cravings are down, head aches are down!
so yes i feel better without
BUT will it kill u????

NO! it will not.

but OBESITY COULD!
so if ur GONNA drink coke.... DRINK IT DIET! because the other can choice has 40 grams of sugar:noway:

and of course we all do agree on one thing. WATER:drinker: drink up, make it ur priority!

angisnee

Normally I just peruse the topics that interest me to get opinions on different things. But this one I just had to comment on! Not so much a comment about the actual topic, but a thank you for everyone being willing to give their opinions. I joined 5 weeks ago and have learned SO much from the forums. Even if no one comes to any sort of conclusion, just having the conversation to get everyone to think is so beneficial.

Now instead of mindlessly grabbing a diet pop just because it's calorie-less, I'll think about it and more than likely, I won't have it. Never would have even thought about it before reading all this. So thanks everyone!

missboriken

I don't like sodas- bad for the teeth, awful sweeteners ...the list goes on and on. I stick to water, mate tea, rooibos tea & more water.