Is it worth it to quit diet soda? Have you?
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biggsterjackster wrote: »I quit drinking diet soda a few months ago. Had about one diet coke every day. Now I feel so much better, no more bloated belly. It was pretty bad at times. I only drink water or tea. Took me a while to get used to.
I'm surprised that one serving of diet soda would cause bloating? My profile picture was taken shortly after I drank a can of diet soda, no bloat at all. I drink 2-4 cans a day and don't have issues at all. Interesting how we're all so different
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Soda is very acidic on your tooth enamel. I would recommend cutting back to one a day.0
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Sarasmaintaining wrote: »biggsterjackster wrote: »I quit drinking diet soda a few months ago. Had about one diet coke every day. Now I feel so much better, no more bloated belly. It was pretty bad at times. I only drink water or tea. Took me a while to get used to.
I'm surprised that one serving of diet soda would cause bloating? My profile picture was taken shortly after I drank a can of diet soda, no bloat at all. I drink 2-4 cans a day and don't have issues at all. Interesting how we're all so different
Yes, my husband drinks about 5per day and it has zero effect on him. For me it was not just the diet soda, pretty much any food or drink with artificial sweetener like aspartame, saccharin etc. would cause the painful bloating.0 -
My opinion. Ditch the soda. I used to drink pepsi a lot but eventually I cut down & now I don't touch it. Saved me a lot of calories & sugar. Also diet drinks aren't the best thing to drink. In some ways they can be worse than the non diet soda plus it doesn't really do anything for you. Soda just gets you hyper & makes you crave more of it. It can also help with weight loss to get rid of it as well as it will save you lots of money.0
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lacusfitness wrote: »My opinion. Ditch the soda. I used to drink pepsi a lot but eventually I cut down & now I don't touch it. Saved me a lot of calories & sugar. Also diet drinks aren't the best thing to drink. In some ways they can be worse than the non diet soda plus it doesn't really do anything for you. Soda just gets you hyper & makes you crave more of it. It can also help with weight loss to get rid of it as well as it will save you lots of money.
Care to elaborate?0 -
I drink 1.5 L a day...I would love to cut back on the damn Coke Zero, but the caffeine is the only thing, that brings me through the day...my teeth will thank me...0
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lacusfitness wrote: »My opinion. Ditch the soda. I used to drink pepsi a lot but eventually I cut down & now I don't touch it. Saved me a lot of calories & sugar. Also diet drinks aren't the best thing to drink. In some ways they can be worse than the non diet soda plus it doesn't really do anything for you. Soda just gets you hyper & makes you crave more of it. It can also help with weight loss to get rid of it as well as it will save you lots of money.
It might do these things to YOU, but it doesn't to everyone.
Drinking or not drinking diet soda makes no difference to calories or sugar and is not worse than anything.
It does not make me hyper at all or give me cravings.
The money thing you have a point.
OP I believe in all things in moderation and I see no harm in a moderate amount of diet soda - but 6 cans a day does seem bit much.
Perhaps cut down to one or two a day.
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I've completely cut out soda from my daily routine, but I do occasionally treat myself with a can or bottle at a meal or a party. For me it wasn't so much that I felt like it was bad for me, but I knew that water was better. So I spent about two weeks weaning myself off of the caffeine and now I've been completely free of it since February. Fewer headaches, whiter teeth, wayyyyy better hydrated... win, win.0
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The only people who can't drink diet sodas with Aspartame have a rare genetic condition called Phenylketonuria who must avoid anything with phenylalanine. You would definitely know if you had this condition.
Besides for that, too many a day could cause issues long term with tooth decay or stomach irritation from the acidity, but it's not a given correlation. I wouldn't swish it in my mouth for long periods of time though ;-)
Excessive caffeine could cause some unpleasant short term side effects too I suppose, although studies have shown you need to drink about a 10-12 cans of soda a day to start getting serious side effects. If your 6 sodas are big 20-24 ounce bottles and you drink coffee or tea on top of that, you could be getting a little too much caffeine.0 -
I used to drink a big bottle if coke zero a day but I swapped it for carbonated water flavoured & vitamin water personally I don't miss it if I have a occasional glass it makes me feel extremely bloated but everything in moderation is ok in my opinion0
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nancypnurse wrote: »I have asked many doctors this question. They tell me that water is best; however, if it keeps you from eating/drinking sugar.... go for it. They state that there are many REPUTABLE, controlled studies that show the dangers of sugar. The literature is less clear with diet soda. If it makes you feel more hungry, don't drink it. If you are diabetic, and it makes your insulin needs greater, quit drinking it. Otherwise, moderation is key.
It also depends on the person and their other health issues. My best friend has Lupus. Either because of the Lupus, or more likely because of the drugs she takes to control the Lupus, she has a huge problem with osteoporosis. Her doctors have told her many, many times that she should stop drinking diet coke because it impacts the body's ability to absorb calcium....and therefore makes osteoporosis worse. She refuses to stop. And she has had both hips, one knee, and one shoulder replaced as a result.
For some people diet soda is a bad idea. Per the National Osteoporosis Society, "People with osteoporosis should not drink more than five cola drinks a week." Link below.
http://nof.org/faq/5880 -
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I completely gave it up but it was just for my own reasons of not wanting to ingest all the chemicals and the fake sugar. There is nothing wrong with it in moderation I still have one every once in awhile. I primarily drink water or seltzer water but that is just me.0
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I used to have 3-4 cans of diet soda a day. I loved, loved, loved it! I loved it with ice... nice and cold! Aaaaaah! But, like you, it started to bother me that I was dependent on it. So, I slowly cut back (I did this back in 2012) and now I just drink water. Sometimes I'll have a soda with a meal when I go out to dinner. But, mostly, I just drink water (I've always loved water, though, so this was never a hardship). These decisions have to be our own and they can't be because of the fear-mongering so prevalent in the news media. When it's a decision from within, it sticks around. Maybe, if you want to make a change, you can cut back on the amount. Listen to what the little voice is saying to you. It's the inner voice that usually is telling us something important. Cheers! 0
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Sarasmaintaining wrote: »thomaspavlick wrote: »When my wife was pregnant, each time the Doctor said NO DIET SODA. Apparently the sweeter and caffeine set off a small bomb and you immediately feel euphoria as your brain cells explode.
Me? I'm getting old, I need every one of mine... so water and plain black coffee, or just a little milk in it. Sometimes black or fruity tea, sometime pelligrino.
Um...LOL.
Can you link thr study to that one
It's the caffeine they don't want you to have/limit during pregnancy. Same reason they recommend the switch to de'caf.
Yep I've had three kids and it's caffeine you're supposed to cut back on, not soda/diet soda specifically. I limited my caffeine intake to two cans of regular coke a day during my pregnancies (I don't drink coffee and hadn't discovered tea at that point). No issues, three healthy pregnancies and babies
I get the caffeine part, but different doctors for all 4 pregnancies said the same thing. meh.
Oh, and Study? I ain't got no study. I'm just bringing the message
I'm no expert, I just play one on tv.
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I really, really, really like diet soda. But I have cut back on it to help with my overall goal to consume fewer chemicals, processed foods and artificially derived products. An acquaintance's father was a food inspector...some of the stories about what is lurking in the bottom of vats or acceptable in certain percentages kind of puts me off a bit!0
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I never did the diet sodas but did regular cokes for 40 years. Over the last 2 years I've been reducing it down to just one a day and then just stopped completely about a month ago. I can finally say I don't miss it and I even went to a movie where I had popcorn and water. 0
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Best thing I ever did was quit drinking pop/soda. Diet Coke was the culprit. Ever notice how disgusting it tastes after a month or two off? You can taste the chemicals. It should signal an issue when your head hurts because you quit! Withdrawal from caffeine. I have had one time I had some black coffee(not a thing in it) just to move my morning along, once. Getting up at 5 at the gym usually wakes me up. Lifting, then cardio and then a shower. Usually that is all the lift I need!0
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I completely gave it up but it was just for my own reasons of not wanting to ingest all the chemicals and the fake sugar. There is nothing wrong with it in moderation I still have one every once in awhile. I primarily drink water or seltzer water but that is just me.
I still drink Diet Coke on occasion... Lots of water or flavored seltzer for me, too. And coffee/tea for caffeine when I need it.
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I used to drink it all the time too! 6 cans a day?? That is A LOT and what the artificial sweeteners do to your blood sugar is awful. They've done studies with mice on artificial sweeteners and cocaine and the areas of the brain that are affected by each is the same. Only the artificial sweeteners were shown to be more addictive!! The mice went into major withdrawals from not having the artificial sweeteners. There are a lot of recent articles about how bad diet soda is and what it does to your body. Going cold turkey is very hard, but at least try and cut it back to 1 a day and then to a few times a week. You'll be amazed at how much better you'll feel and sleep after a few weeks.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeteners-may-change-our-gut-bacteria-in-dangerous-ways/-1 -
When I first started eating better, I switched to the diet versions of everything that I drank. Now I've pretty much dropped them completely aside from the occasional one when I go out to eat or when I'm staying with family. I don't buy into a lot of the scaremongering DIET SODA DOES ALL THE BAD THINGS crap - any studies showing any negative effects specific to diet soda seem to be few and far between - so I don't try and pretend I did it for my health.
I stopped drinking them purely because I am too cheap to pay for them. I have tap water and I have diluting juice that I can put into water if I'm getting bored of plain water and so I now spend no more than £2 (if that) on drinks of any kind. So if you're happy with the expense and you enjoy it, I don't see a problem with it.0 -
stevencloser wrote: »
If you count your calories and don't succumb to every craving that study doesn't apply to you though.ImitatetheSun wrote: »I thought about it exactly the way you did, OP. I loved the stuff and rationally, I couldn't think of a reason to stop, except that I thought it might be such an ingrained habit that maybe I'm not in control anymore. So In January I gave up My two 20-ounce bottles of Diet Coke, plus Splenda out of the same fear that I was dependent on it. I substituted them for Hi Caff teas from Republic of Tea and Starbucks Iced Coffee, which I drank straight or with milk. Here was the surprise: my food cravings went away. I've lost 20 pounds since giving them up - not because they alone created a calorie deficit, obviously, but because my appetite is small enough that i can actually successfully be on a diet. So now I'm on the biggest weight loss effort of my life, and that was the first step for me. Annoyingly, because the studies sounded so stupid and condescending to me when they came out, this corresponds to a September study that got in the news finding a correlation between diet soda and obesity. Here's another study that's been cited 102 times, suggesting it's a well-studied phenomenon at this point: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/
I think the point is that it just makes it harder to stick to your calorie goals by increasing the level of cravings you have to fight off. I find it's easier to stick to my calorie goals when I'm not regularly drinking diet soda, even though I was a huge skeptic of the studies that showed weight gain from diet soda because I thought it made me feel more full (turned out I was wrong!). Now, I still occasionally drink a diet soda or two, but I drink more water (including unsweetened, flavored bubbly waters that fulfill the same cravings as diet soda).
At any rate, there is enough reputable research (like the literature review ImitatetheSun posted here) that indicates that there might be something going on with diet soda and weight gain. I suspect that there is also a fair amount of individual differences, so I would recommend the OP try easing all the way off and seeing how he feels (how it affects him personally), since he's considering it.0 -
there have been so many studies on the adverse effects of diet soda.
i have found that mineral water with lime or lemon or even the la croix gives me a 'soda fix' and is much better for me. My kids even love it. Weird I know but they do.0 -
I used to drink a lot of Coke Zero, until one day I just found it disgusting and could not have another sip of it. I stick to water now. It wasn't because I decided it was evil or anything. I am certainly more hydrated. When I needed a soda I had to find one, now that I drink (tap) water, it is everywhere and I drink more through the day. I have less headaches too - related to the hydration probably.0
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I used to get terrible headaches frequently. I finally realized it was when I drank more diet soda than usual. This was caffeine free diet soda so it wasn't the caffeine. For some reason diet pepsi bothered me much more than diet coke. I stopped drinking them about 5 years ago and those headaches are gone. Of course I don't think many people have that issue, I'm guessing I am overly sensitive to artificial sweeteners or something.0
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there have been so many studies on the adverse effects of diet soda.
i have found that mineral water with lime or lemon or even the la croix gives me a 'soda fix' and is much better for me. My kids even love it. Weird I know but they do.
Have there now?
I used to hate it, but after years of not having any I tried some and it tasted good. What do you say to that?powerplaymsu wrote: »Best thing I ever did was quit drinking pop/soda. Diet Coke was the culprit. Ever notice how disgusting it tastes after a month or two off? You can taste the chemicals. It should signal an issue when your head hurts because you quit! Withdrawal from caffeine. I have had one time I had some black coffee(not a thing in it) just to move my morning along, once. Getting up at 5 at the gym usually wakes me up. Lifting, then cardio and then a shower. Usually that is all the lift I need!
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I drink more diet Coke now that it's free at work, but I'm trying to cut back to 1-2 cans a day. I make up the difference in plain seltzer water (also free!).
I also brush my teeth during the day at work. I don't like the film from coffee or soda to sit on my teeth. But I'm pretty obsessive about my teeth, lol.
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