Diet Coke is a Joke....

megsta21

Countless numbers of dieters consume Diet Coke thinking that it is inert to their diet efforts. After all, it's called Diet Coke, right? Wrong.

Diet Coke, regardless of how many calories it has, wreaks havoc on your fat loss efforts and will ultimately cause you to gain weight. There are two main reasons for the Diet Coke fallacy. First, the sweet taste from Diet Coke elicits an insulin spike, which blocks your ability to burn fat. Second, artificial sweeteners found in Diet Coke disrupt satiety, the feeling of being full. Combined, the actions of Diet Coke go against a healthy lifestyle. Understanding why ensures that we think twice before consuming it.

When it comes to losing fat, it is more about how much sugar (or sugar substitute) you consume rather than calories or dietary fat intake. Hence, the goal is to consume as little sugar or sugar substitute as possible (including fruits and their juices). Why? The sweet flavor elicits the release of insulin from the pancreas to enhance the uptake of sugar by the cells so that it doesn't linger in the bloodstream. Once insulin is released it inhibits your fat burning hormone called HSL (hormone sensitive lipase). This hormone is responsible for releasing fat into the bloodstream to be utilized as fuel. If inhibited, your body is unable to burn fat and will then begin utilizing amino acids (from muscle) and carbohydrates as fuel. This will leave you feeling tired, grumpy, and sloth-like toward the end of the day. Not to mention, you will become abnormally hungry. Those with large amounts of HSL burn fat all day and look thin and slim. Those who inhibit it by eating or drinking the wrong substances grow fat throughout their adult years.

Second, as discovered by Professor Terry Davidson and associate professor Susan Withers at Purdue University, artificial sweeteners disrupt satiety, the feeling of being full. Their results, published in International Journal of Obesity showed that "mouth feel" plays a crucial role in the body's ability to count calories and that when we consume artificial sweeteners we disrupt the body's ability to count calories based on sweetness. Not able to use mouth feel to count calories, those who drink diet coke will overeat without conscious awareness. In other words, you think you're not eating like a pig, but in reality you are.

Diet Coke is not the only substance having these abilities. Makers of health food bars and protein supplements are either not aware or ignore the ill effects of sugar alternatives and sugar. This can be seen by the fact that most every health food bar and protein supplement is loaded with sugar or artificial sweeteners. The belief that these bars and supplements are healthy for you is a perfect example of how marketing strategies can supersede medical science and common sense.

In closing, Diet Coke is a joke. Stay away from it and other sugar sources if you're serious about losing fat and keeping it off forever. Regardless of your diet and/or training efforts, the aforementioned ill effects of sugar alternatives and sugar will greatly hinder them.

Sourced from: www.emaxhealth.com

squishyjenn

I wish I read this BEFORE I went to the movies tonight and bought a GIGANTIC diet Pepsi. And drank nearly all of it. You have effectively given me all the more reason to avoid it.

Cytherea

Diet Coke fallacy.

As a professor of critical thinking, I have to say... LOVE THIS!!

Brat3073

omgosh, where did you get the no smokin ticker? I would love to add that to my page!

Brat3073

omgosh, where did you get the no smokin ticker? I would love to add that to my page!

ktbug1186

sooooo good to know!!!! I have recently fallen in love with diet dr. pepper...im def not drinking it anymore! Does this mean that if i want a soda i should just stick with regular or is that worse than diet?:ohwell:

grouch201

Must be doing enough right that the diet coke isn't truly hurting the big picture. I have a medium diet coke about once a week from McDonald's, and I'm actually loosing weight faster than I'd expected. Maybe I should drink more to slow things down a tad. I just have to say anything I read that is diet related, I always take with a grain of salt (1 grain isn't going to wreck my sodium intake) and just keep exercising and eating healthy on the whole. I still have my indulgences, but they are kept to a minimum. That's what it's all about.

nikki91950

this is really great and all, but i think that in the big scope of things, diet coke is one of the least significant things we have to worry about. i've been drinking diet coke since i was a preteen, and i can assure anybody that diet coke was not the culprit of my past obesity problem.

Mindful_Trent

I definitely agree it's good to stay away from added sugar and sugar substitutes, but I have to take exception with one particular line in this post:

When it comes to losing fat, it is more about how much sugar (or sugar substitute) you consume rather than calories or dietary fat intake. Hence, the goal is to consume as little sugar or sugar substitute as possible (including fruits and their juices)

Fruit comes packed with so many good vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc - it does a disservice to discourage people from eating fruit. I eat on average 2 servings of fruit a day and am having no trouble with fat loss - I think the key is to make sure that you keep ADDED sugars out of your diet as much as possible and eat reasonable portions of fruit and dairy. From what I've read, normally the regulating systems in our body work quite well when you eat reasonably, but it's when you eat large servings of sugar at once that causes your body to overcompensate and release too much insulin (which leads to the crappy "sugar crash" feeling).

megsta21

omgosh, where did you get the no smokin ticker? I would love to add that to my page!

Thanks! I got it at www.sparkletags.com.



I just posted it because i found this to be of interest.

megsta21

I definitely agree it's good to stay away from added sugar and sugar substitutes, but I have to take exception with one particular line in this post:

When it comes to losing fat, it is more about how much sugar (or sugar substitute) you consume rather than calories or dietary fat intake. Hence, the goal is to consume as little sugar or sugar substitute as possible (including fruits and their juices)

Fruit comes packed with so many good vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc - it does a disservice to discourage people from eating fruit. I eat on average 2 servings of fruit a day and am having no trouble with fat loss - I think the key is to make sure that you keep ADDED sugars out of your diet as much as possible and eat reasonable portions of fruit and dairy. From what I've read, normally the regulating systems in our body work quite well when you eat reasonably, but it's when you eat large servings of sugar at once that causes your body to overcompensate and release too much insulin (which leads to the crappy "sugar crash" feeling).

Yep I agree with you Trenton!! Fruit is awesome!!! Processed sugars = bad!!!

fxst78

If you are going to have a soda then you are better off with a diet one.

Drink water as much as possible but artificial sweetener will not destroy all your hard work. If you are logging calories and you are sticking to your goals then half of the issue is gone as you are not overeating becasue of the DC.

And if you are worried about the insulin response then just have your DC with a meal or very close to eating. This gets rid of the other issue.

kayemme

the article brings up bigger points.

having one diet (or not diet) coke a week is really not a big deal. in a healthy, or even reasonably healthy... or hell, even not actually sick, body can handle it.

the sweetness in sodas is what spikes the urge to overeat with salty things. salty things are usually teamed up with fatty things. now you have the triad.

overly sweet things (read: all sodas) do disrupt the tongue's ability to decipher actual sweetness. i just wrote an article a few days ago about the high fructose corn syrup industry looking to change the name to "corn sugar" to (what i believe) mislead the public into believing it's the same thing as table sugar, which isn't all that great either.

but further than that, for thousands of years before industrial food, the level of sweetness was that of an ordinary grape or apple. diet coke is WAY WAY sweeter than that. i used to wash fudge down with soda; i'm surprised i even have pancreas.

i just cut soda out of my diet completely (diet or otherwise) because it distorts my tastes for actual food. when i drink soda, i crave chips. when i drink soda, i crave candy.

right now i sort of crave all of it, but have been holding up all right because i know it will even out.

fit2sit

First, the sweet taste from Diet Coke elicits an insulin spike, which blocks your ability to burn fat.

Aspartame does not stimulate insulin release.

Please refer to D.G. Bruce, et al, (2004), Cephalic phase metabolic responses in normal weight adults,

bbygrl5

I am a 90% whole foodie with one bad addiction... diet soda. You speak the absolute truth! Diet soda is very horrible for you! This is my next mountain to conquer. Thanks for the further motivation!!

cbirdso

You didn't mention that aspartame works as a preservative in your body. It INHIBITS fat loss because all preservatives and complex chemicals in processed food combines with fat molecules. It requires more energy from our bodies to eventually metabolize these completed fat molecule chains.

When our body is in a calorie deficit, one would think fat stores would be a logical place to find energy, but a body that has fat tied up in completed chains as I described above, takes MORE energy to break down than the body has at the moment because there is less intake. Therefore, the body goes to something easier, like protein from our muscles and internal organs. This is a vicious cycle for those seeking weight loss. Less muscle mass means a slower metabolism and even less fat being burned because the dieter has less energy to spare. Unfortunately, most dieters gets discouraged and think they need to eat even LESS. The body once again goes to protein stores for energy and the downward spiral continues.

This is why 'eating healthy' doesn't just mean eating smaller portions of diet foods laced with additives. It means eliminating 'hard to metabolize' foods from your diet and giving your body the right balance of ready energy so that those fat chains can be broken up WITHOUT adding new fat stores.

fit2sit

You didn't mention that aspartame works as a preservative in your body. It INHIBITS fat loss because all preservatives and complex chemicals in processed food combines with fat molecules. It requires more energy from our bodies to eventually metabolize these completed fat molecule chains.

When our body is in a calorie deficit, one would think fat stores would be a logical place to find energy, but a body that has fat tied up in completed chains as I described above, takes MORE energy to break down than the body has at the moment because there is less intake. Therefore, the body goes to something easier, like protein from our muscles and internal organs. This is a vicious cycle for those seeking weight loss. Less muscle mass means a slower metabolism and even less fat being burned because the dieter has less energy to spare. Unfortunately, most dieters gets discouraged and think they need to eat even LESS. The body once again goes to protein stores for energy and the downward spiral continues.

Aspartame is hydrolyzed on its methyl group by intestinal esterases yielding methanol, which is oxidized in the one-carbon metabolic pool to CO2. The resultant dipeptide of that is split at the mucosal surface by dipeptidases and the free amino acids are absorbed. The aspartic acid is transformed in large part to CO2 through its entry into the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Phenylalanine is primarily incorporated into body protein either unchanged or as its major metabolite, tyrosine.

That's the jest of my biochem book on Aspartame metabolism. I couldn't find out where aspartame "binds" to fat or when it becomes a free fatty acid in its metabolism in our bodies. How exactly does it bind?

Beebee78

Good post! And some fab replies.

My personal trainer was telling me last week that diet drinks are very bad for you. He said basically in order to use the energy stored in the, glycogens need to be the size of the tip of your thumb or bigger, that way they go further into the body and are broken down correctly. In diet and zero drinks the glycogen molecules are teeny tiny and therefore go directly to the brain where they are broken down. It causes the body to feel stressed as the brain is working too hard and then it produces cortisol which if overproduced is bad for you and you will store more fat!

xxx

sparklesammy

i drink coke zero every day.A lot of coke zero. its my favorite. so far i dont think it really has hindered my weight loss. im doing quite well (having lost 97 lbs so far)...

goron59

Interesting stuff and something else to put on the pile of good advice...

Of course, another reason to avoid diet coke is that it tastes like s**t. ;-)

125again

I've honestly never drank a diet anything or used an artificial sugar substitute in my life. Freaks me out and tastes funky. My stomach doesn't like it either. I'll just stick with water and natural sugar thank you. I'd rather allocate for the sugar calories than consume a lot of artificial stuff. Bugs me out.