Diet Drinks

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 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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!