Should I stop drinking soda all together?

define "results." are you struggling?

Yes you should.

I stopped drinking diet pop for about 3 weeks, didn't lose any more weight than when I was drinking it. I started drinking it again and my weight loss is going great.

I did and lost 5lbs right off the bat. It's been 1 month and I am down 9lbs and have let myself have a glass of soda on 2 occasions...any other time, I am drinking water. I have absolutely no regrets! But be warned, the trick is not to just quit the sodas! You really do have to increase your water intake...don't substitue other drinks for the water...

i quit DIET soda a year ago, at the time it was ALL i drank no kidding. i quit it in the hopes i would lose more weight, everyone swore i would due to the sodium and the fake sugar blah blah blah. i didn't lose one mealy pound! i have however been diet soda free for a year now. all i drink is water i just feel better without it both physically and mentally

:flowerforyou: yes, you should absolutely give up soda, regular and diet and all carbonated beverages

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not only for weight loss but for your health in general.

Diet soda doesn't make you gain or lose weight... calorie consumption and exercise or lack thereof are the only two things that contribute to your weight gain or loss. If you want to quit diet soda because you want to eat more "cleanly," or because it causes other health issues for you, then those are good reasons. There is no reason to think that DIET soda is inhibiting you from losing weight.

I'm not a doctor but I just wanted to point out that, while I generally agree that a bit of diet soda is not likely to greatly reduce your ability to lose weight, there IS some thinking in the medical field (and some published studies) linking diet soda with metabolic syndrome. Calories in, calories out is the basic formula, yes. But I think that there are a lot of things out there (not just diet soda, but pesticides, plastics, hormones, etc.) that might be wreaking havoc on our endocrine systems. That might mess with someone's ability to lose weight. The reason that so many super lean, fit people advocate clean eating is that the quality of the calories count too, and that includes not being full of all sorts of things that might mess with system. At least that is my take on the matter.

Here's a link to one of the published studies I mentioned, just in case anyone is interested. http://care.diabetesjournals.org.floyd.lib.umn.edu/content/32/4/688.long

Edit because I don't think you'll be able to access that link without being a student at my university. The citation is Nettleton et al. (2009) "Diet Soda Intake and Risk of Incident Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA)"

I have always drank Diet Pepsi Caffeine Free! Absolutely the stuff, but when I started this adventure I decided to drink water. I have never ever been a fan of water. But now for the last month I have found myself loving good cold water. I do use the Crystal light, this only adds 5-10 calories so it is worth it to me. I did have a Diet Pepsi on Thursday and I noticed that I did not have to go to the bathroom like when I drink water. So I believe the sodium does make you keep the water in your body! Which is not a good thing!!

I don't think it will effect your weight loss at all. Diet soda has very little sodium and as long as you are drinking a lot of water (2 bottles? What size?) it really won't affect it very much. However, I found when I quite soda that I stopped craving sweet things so much. I've read that diet soda is so much sweeter (due to the fake sugar which is bad for you and the main reason I wanted to quite) it makes your tolerance for sweets higher. I completely agree with this idea.
I do have to add, I have been unable to stop my soda addiction and will continue the struggle when I get back from vacation

I don't drink soda everyday I have cut back. But if I do drink soda it's only 1 in a day and usually diet coke or coke zero.

yes. :drinker:

I am pretty much a person who is against anything that contains fake sweeteners. It is the lesser of the two evils. If I had a choice between a regular soda and a diet one I would never take diet. Your body is not meant to have this chemically produced sugar and there for doesn't quite know how to break it down.

My roommate is a medical scientist and tells me all the time of the negatives of having diet soda. As was stated earlier it can be a cause of diabetes because you are fooling your body.

As a rule of thumb Soda is bad for you and should be limited in consumption. I was lucky enough to never have it in my house as a child so therefor I was never trained to buy it as an adult. It was always a special treat and still is.

i'm sorry.....but i disagree, disagree, disagree. i drink diet coke constantly and i am losing weight at a great rate. it has had no effect on my weight loss.

i'm sorry.....but i disagree, disagree, disagree. i drink diet coke constantly and i am losing weight at a great rate. it has had no effect on my weight loss.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, you also have a lot more to lose than the original poster. She only has the last 10 lbs to lose which, according to several personal trainers I've spoken with, are "a totally different animal". Most bodies will be far more willing to let go of weight when someone is at an unhealthy weight because it is easier for the body to exist at a healthy weight. However, once you only have a few pounds to lose, it isn't as much about health, but a bit more of the "vanity" weight--wanting to drop the body fat down and get a very lean look (I don't mean that as a bad thing, I'm in the same place myself). At that point, from what I understand, most of our bodies absolutely do NOT want to lose those last few pounds of fat are a protection mechanism against famine. At that point, everything I've heard says that eating very cleanly really does make a difference. This is, of course, just my take on the issue (and the trainers I know) but, suffice it to say, I will definitely NOT be drinking any diet soda.