Diet Soda and Weight Loss

my greatest success didnt come until i gave up all forms of soda and juices. my primary beverage is water now. i may have a little green tea or a honest drink every now and then but water is my go to beverage

I gave up diet soda and it made a huge difference.

Here is a Yale Study on the effects of artificial sweeteners found in diet sodas and the effect they have on the body:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/

The interesting part of the research is the use of artificial sweeteners and the effect on the cravings the body produces. I will take a few quotes...

"Aspartame also increased subjective hunger ratings compared to glucose or water."

"In another study, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and saccharin were all associated with heightened motivation to eat and more items selected on a food preference list [35]. Aspartame had the most pronounced effect, possibly because it does not have a bitter aftertaste."

"Sweetness decoupled from caloric content offers partial, but not complete, activation of the food reward pathways. ... Animals seek food to satisfy the inherent craving for sweetness, even in the absence of energy need. Lack of complete satisfaction, likely because of the failure to activate the postingestive component, further fuels the food seeking behavior." In simpler words, we don't get no satisfaction from the artificial sweeteners so we continue eating!


"Lastly, artificial sweeteners, precisely because they are sweet, encourage sugar craving and sugar dependence. Repeated exposure trains flavor preference [54]. A strong correlation exists between a person’s customary intake of a flavor and his preferred intensity for that flavor. Systematic reduction of dietary salt [55] or fat [56] without any flavorful substitution over the course of several weeks led to a preference for lower levels of those nutrients in the research subjects. In light of these findings, a similar approach might be used to reduce sugar intake. Unsweetening the world’s diet [15] may be the key to reversing the obesity epidemic." The food you eat trains your brain to crave those foods!


Now when I want a bit of soda, I get a sparkling water, add a bit of lemon or lime. My cravings for sweet things has gone way down and is usually satisfied with fresh fruit.

bump

diet soda satisfies my sugar cravings.

Take that, correlation-causation!

Yeah definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel folks... Calorie free soda does not cause you weight gain, I have on average 2 to 3 diet pepsi a day and have for years now and have managed to lose a few pounds.....

Even if it causes you to crave sweet things, if you're counting calories of everything anyway, it -shouldn't- make a difference, unless you're having trouble sticking to calories.

That said, I'm really hoping it's the magic formula, because I'm a huuuuge diet coke addict (drink it like water. Drink water as well, but dc is my go to drink, will easily polish off 2 litres a day), and two days ago, I woke up and accidently quit cold turkey, because it just seemed repulsive to me (I think maybe a side effect of mostly eating clean nutritional foods these days). If it's the magic super key to weight loss, I'll be very happy. (Somehow, I don't think so.)

I gave it up part way through my loss for reasons other than weight loss. My rate of loss has not changed. I gave it up because I was concerned about the acidic nature of it affecting my teeth (I was drinking up to 10 a day). And I am leery of the BPA lining the cans as I already have hormonal problems from PCOS and figured additional potential endocrine disrupters were not something I needed in my life.

I don't drink tons of diet soda, but I do have maybe 3 10 ounce bottles of Coke Zero a week and I also use a fair amount of Splenda in coffee, on grapefruit, etc. This satisfies my sweet tooth and doesn't seem to be either provoking wild sugar cravings or hampering my weight loss. In fact, I've lost 17% of my body weight, so I'm not planning on changing anything.

Honestly, OP, I think this is something you need to figure out for yourself. Personally, diet soda doesn't affect my cravings at all, but sugar free sweets make me crave sweets even more. I've had to experiment with what I can and can not eat. There are certain foods that I simply can't eat because they trigger bingeing (like sweetened cereals and donuts). I really believe that it's different for everyone and that most studies are basically just propaganda.