Diet soda???

Is it healthy? No. Can you lose weight while drinking it? Of course. I have started moderating my diet soda intake in favor of drinking more water, but I still have several diet cokes a week and never feel guilty about it.

Based on personal experience and light research:

STOP drinking it.
It contains aspartame, and most simply put:

"While it sounds like a wonderful alternative to sugar, Aspartame has been getting a lot of negative attention since it was first legalized in the United States. When you ingest it, the components of aspartame work like neurotransmitters, or molecules that signal neurons in your brain that control the rest of your body. Aspartame signals the body that it is receiving sugar, so the body responds to digest that sugar by releasing insulin for sugar breakdown. However, because the body is not actually receiving sugar, it is looking to process something that isn’t there. As a result, the body craves more sugar, because it now thinks it needs it. Therefore, you start to crave more sugar, or more aspartame, in order to sooth that lack of nutrients."

OR

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/the-nutrition-of-diet-soda.html

everyone can have their own opinions, but why bother with it. It gives you absolutely no nutrition or benefits, its a cup of synthetic chemicals. I used to drink it, I understand it tastes good (until you stop drinking it for awhile or eat clean and try it again- literally tastes like poison) but really its garbage. Spending money and putting your health at risk for garbage!

Drink Water and tea!!!! Kick the diet soda addiction.

There's really no conclusive evidence that diet soda has any negative effects on your body. While some studies suggested it may cause you to want to eat more of other foods, if you're tracking your calories and maintaining a caloric deficit while drinking diet soda such a side effect is irrelevant. As for it not being healthy and thus you should eliminate it altogether, people consume all sorts of unhealthy substances purely for enjoyment's sake, e.g., alcohol. Life is about balancing enjoyment with your health and you can do a lot worse than drinking a bit of diet soda.

^^^This. There are so many things which may lead drinkers of diet pop to end up eating more/being heavier. Maybe they think they can eat more since they aren't drinking any calories. Maybe they were already overweight or obese and this is their attempt to cut back. There is no set causation yet found. The same goes for cancer. The only true way to test if the aspartame itself causes cancer is to somehow magically get a sample of people who are being exposed to zero carcinogens, known or unknown, and expose them only to aspartame for their entire lives. However, that would be literally impossible to do since we do not know all carcinogens. Also, it would be a pretty unethical experiment! (I'm not saying there are no studies which could indicate a higher risk at some point, but I think you all get what I am trying to say!)

I used to drink, like, a 2 liter bottle of diet soda (usually Fresca!) a day. I think I was a major factor in keeping Fresca in business. But I've gone cold turkey on artificial sweeteners, mostly because I've heard vague scientific rumors that they give you cancer and whatnot. I figure, even if they don't give me cancer, what's the harm in drinking water instead? Also, it was getting kind of expensive to buy all that Fresca, and I really wouldn't drink any water when I had that delicious elixir around.

Also, there is something weird about artificial sweeteners. I've trained myself to like it, after years of drinking diet drinks, but it's quite a chemical taste.

I like diet soda. I'm not even picky as to type, really -- I'm drinking a Pepsi Max right now, but only because it was on sale.

I was curious about how you guys feel about drinking diet soda. I have heard SO much conflicting information. Right now I'm only giving in to diet soda twice a week. Do you guys avoid it all together?

I switched from regular soda to diet when I started losing weight and drank around 4-5 cans a day. Now I'm in maintence and still drink diet but I've also started drinking the new 10 calorie options too (sunkist, dr. pepper etc). Soda is the only thing I drink besides water (no coffee, milk, alcohol etc).

I have yet to see any credible sources proving that any chemical in diet soda is bad for you in normal quantities.

They give rats enough artificial sweeteners to equal me drinking about a thousand liters of Coke Zero or whatever per day. You know what would happen if I drank a thousand liters of water a day? I'd die from hyponatremia, not just have a higher risk of eventually maybe getting cancer.

Some 0-calorie sweeteners might have an insulin response, sure. You know what has MORE of an insulin response? Cane sugar (sucrose), high fructose corn syrup, glucose, dextrose... Yknow, actual caloric sweeteners.


In normal quantities, drink your diet soda and don't regret anything.

I have yet to see any credible sources proving that testing on rats is in any way equal to testing on humans.

I used to drink 2L a day. Then, I quit cold turkey just to see what happened. My appetite immediately reduced, and I wasn't hungry all of the time. In my experience, I feel as though the extra sweetener was messing with my appetite. Now, I only drink it in small quantities (250 ml serving) and always with food.

I'm gonna stop drinking it in front of my brother...he won't stop harassing me about the badness of it. Trying not to having it everyday- just a couple of days a week. It seems to be addictive......:grumble: