Cut out zero calorie soda/drinks?

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Replies

  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    No one has to drink diet soda. It's not something everyone likes. It's kind of expensive. You don't owe Coca Cola or Pepsi or anyone else your money. You don't need to drink things you find unappealing.

    There are many good reasons to avoid diet soda. Caffeine can absolutely cause sleep problems. It can also exacerbate many medical conditions. It is a legal, rather nice drug, but a drug. No one goes on a caffeine bender and kills their entire family. It can improve performance when tired. But you can live a perfectly happy life without it. Long-term your body is probably better off with more sleep.

    Rarely, an individual will have an allergy to a specific artifical sweetener. Phenylketonuria is present and diagnosed at birth and aspartame can be fatal for those individuals, yet they can consume sucralose and other artificial sweeteners. Some are allergic to sucralose. Your odds of having one of these allergies are low. Your odds of being allergic to multiple artificial sweeteners are almost nil.

    But please, folks, quit rationalizing your decision in terms of artificial sweeteners and weight loss. They don't cause weight gain. They can't.

    The scientific evidence for the microbiota hypothesis is very low, much lower than all the hype around it. And while your feelings about your health are no doubt real, please realize that they are also highly subjective, open to the power of suggestion, and your overall sensation of well - being is based on a very complex system and set of factors.

    So drink, or don't drink, diet soda. But whichever you choose, stop grasping for a sense of moral superiority here, because there is none.
  • deaniac83
    deaniac83 Posts: 166 Member
    It can help, yes. As others mentioned, zero calories by themselves cannot make you gain weight. However, if you feel that psychologically you are giving yourself permission to eat more just because you had a diet coke, then the diet soda for you is a trigger for eating too much, and you may wish to consider staying away from that trigger.
  • LPJM1710
    LPJM1710 Posts: 14 Member
    It is a misconception that zero calorie drinks are not loaded with sugar and other substances that will benefit the opposite of weight loss. However the only time I would drink zero calories drinks is when I was doing a seriously heavy and lengthy work-out and had a need for the caffein spike other than that would stay well clear since they can be seriously detrimental to your insulin levels and if you spike your insulin then you are unlikely to see any weight loss
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    LPJM1710 wrote: »
    It is a misconception that zero calorie drinks are not loaded with sugar and other substances that will benefit the opposite of weight loss. However the only time I would drink zero calories drinks is when I was doing a seriously heavy and lengthy work-out and had a need for the caffein spike other than that would stay well clear since they can be seriously detrimental to your insulin levels and if you spike your insulin then you are unlikely to see any weight loss

    What?
  • lisaski61
    lisaski61 Posts: 2 Member
    They say that you should give them up too because they make you crave sugar. I try to have only have some a couple times a month
  • songbird13291
    songbird13291 Posts: 120 Member
    I don't have an issue with diet coke or diet Pepsi , I'm not caffeine sensitive and I don't have a reaction to the artificial sweeteners. I don't get cravings, I've lost 45 pounds while drinking diet sodas

    I'm cutting back on soda these days because I want to drink more water.

    But how do I handle my friend who thinks she's the diet guru and scolds me every time I mention drinking diet Pepsi?
  • Floridaman789
    Floridaman789 Posts: 109 Member
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    I don't have an issue with diet coke or diet Pepsi , I'm not caffeine sensitive and I don't have a reaction to the artificial sweeteners. I don't get cravings, I've lost 45 pounds while drinking diet sodas

    I'm cutting back on soda these days because I want to drink more water.

    But how do I handle my friend who thinks she's the diet guru and scolds me every time I mention drinking diet Pepsi?

    If it were me, I'd ignore it the first couple times. Then I'd tell her to pound sand and mind her own business.
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    LPJM1710 wrote: »
    It is a misconception that zero calorie drinks are not loaded with sugar and other substances that will benefit the opposite of weight loss. However the only time I would drink zero calories drinks is when I was doing a seriously heavy and lengthy work-out and had a need for the caffein spike other than that would stay well clear since they can be seriously detrimental to your insulin levels and if you spike your insulin then you are unlikely to see any weight loss

    If I spike my insulin levels I won't lose weight? How does that work when all foods spike insulin?
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
    erinc5 wrote: »
    RGv2 wrote: »
    Alluminati wrote: »
    It has sodium bicarbonate in it which sounds like junk and scares me.

    They use that stuff in a process called "soda blasting" definitely stay away.

    I heard they use that stuff in chicken from KFC too, so I never touch it.......that has nothing to do with all of our KFC's closing and are now Popeye's, but that's beside the point B)

    I can't tell if you two are being sarcastic or not. Haha.

    Sodium Bicarbonate is just baking soda. I'm pretty sure 95% of Americans have it in their household and use it for a variety of things. It is a kitchen staple if you bake. Unless you are ingesting tremendous amounts you are fine. Ever had a homemade chocolate chip cookie, cupcake, etc...? You are eating Sodium Bicarbonate.

    570ccadc6f792041a972d425703bffb8.jpg

    It's an inside joke from a thread probably a year ago where someone wouldn't eat the chicken from KFC because of toxinz. Once we coached the toxin they were avoiding out of them it was the dreaded.......sodium bicarbonate.
  • harrybananas
    harrybananas Posts: 292 Member
    A case of coke zero a day keeps the weight gain away.
  • deaniac83
    deaniac83 Posts: 166 Member
    edited January 2016
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    While well-intended, this is irrelevant. First off, we are not talking about leaving something in the soda - it is cycling through your body just like everything. You can't compare things in different state. Water, falling on rocks over time will eat away at the rocks - does that mean we should stop drinking water?

    Also, our bodies already contain and benefit from several chemicals that could be pretty good cleaners and can have other harmful effects on objects. Citric acid, found in lemons and oranges for example, are great for washing dishes with grease deposits (and you probably could wash a car engine with a high enough concentrate). Lemons, however, are still good for you. Water and oxygen are the main factors in metallic corrosion. Both, however, are essential to the functioning of a human body.

    So just because substance A can have effect B on object C under condition D does not automatically make them harmful to consume.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    I'm pretty sure the hydrochloric acid in your stomach naturally, given time, would dissolve nails as well.
  • erinc5
    erinc5 Posts: 329 Member
    edited January 2016
    RGv2 wrote: »
    erinc5 wrote: »
    RGv2 wrote: »
    Alluminati wrote: »
    It has sodium bicarbonate in it which sounds like junk and scares me.

    They use that stuff in a process called "soda blasting" definitely stay away.

    I heard they use that stuff in chicken from KFC too, so I never touch it.......that has nothing to do with all of our KFC's closing and are now Popeye's, but that's beside the point B)

    I can't tell if you two are being sarcastic or not. Haha.

    Sodium Bicarbonate is just baking soda. I'm pretty sure 95% of Americans have it in their household and use it for a variety of things. It is a kitchen staple if you bake. Unless you are ingesting tremendous amounts you are fine. Ever had a homemade chocolate chip cookie, cupcake, etc...? You are eating Sodium Bicarbonate.

    570ccadc6f792041a972d425703bffb8.jpg

    It's an inside joke from a thread probably a year ago where someone wouldn't eat the chicken from KFC because of toxinz. Once we coached the toxin they were avoiding out of them it was the dreaded.......sodium bicarbonate.

    Haha. Thank goodness it was actually sarcasm! I wasn't aware of that older thread. Next thing you know people will be freaking out because 3rd graders are using sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid in science experiments.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    Keep in mind that water, if placed in a pressure washer, can strip the paint off a car and bore holes through concrete and asphalt. It's also used as a cleaner around the house. Drinking too much of it can kill you (google 'hyponatremia') and if you leave your body completely submerged in it for more than a few minutes it can drown you. Evil, evil water. Do the research and you will find out.

    See how things can get twisted when you use hyperbole and don't apply common sense?
  • chandanista
    chandanista Posts: 986 Member
    I don't have an issue with diet coke or diet Pepsi , I'm not caffeine sensitive and I don't have a reaction to the artificial sweeteners. I don't get cravings, I've lost 45 pounds while drinking diet sodas

    I'm cutting back on soda these days because I want to drink more water.

    But how do I handle my friend who thinks she's the diet guru and scolds me every time I mention drinking diet Pepsi?

    Pull a Ron Swanson. "I'm sorry, I can't hear hippies."
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    edited January 2016
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    Are you aware that the acid in your stomach is much, much stronger than the acid in soda?

    Use gastric acid to clean the contacts of a car battery and you won't need to let it sit like you do with soda. Clean your house with gastric acid and be prepared to replace most of your things after it etches, or straight out eats holes through it.

    Fun fact - did an experiment in college organic chem where we were replicating digestion of bran cereal with hydrochloric acid at the same molarity found in the stomach to later analyze the products. My lab partner managed to spill 500mL of the stuff on me and the floor. Did I mention it was boiling in order to speed up the reaction (trying to cram the whole experiment in an hour, you know)?

    Stuff ate through my jeans, shoes, lab coat, and etched the concrete floor (not instantly, it did take some time).

    Oddly enough, I've spilled soda on myself many a time and had none of those problems even though I don't rush to 'get it off me, get it off me' like I did in the lab.
  • htimpaired
    htimpaired Posts: 1,404 Member
    LPJM1710 wrote: »
    It is a misconception that zero calorie drinks are not loaded with sugar and other substances that will benefit the opposite of weight loss. However the only time I would drink zero calories drinks is when I was doing a seriously heavy and lengthy work-out and had a need for the caffein spike other than that would stay well clear since they can be seriously detrimental to your insulin levels and if you spike your insulin then you are unlikely to see any weight loss

    Um, I'm pretty sure that by definition they are NOT loaded with sugar, or else they would not be zero calorie.
  • KateTii
    KateTii Posts: 886 Member
    edited January 2016
    I love diet soda (in particular, Pepsi Max) - It's sweet, satisfies the urge and zero calorie. I don't drink much of it due to the cost compared to water but oh man it is good! The only reason not to drink "zero calorie" drinks is if you have concerns over the (highly debated) ingredients, the cost or if it causes you to "binge".

    I do also love carbonated water with fruit - mainly lemon but strawberries also taste great!
  • tnm7760
    tnm7760 Posts: 109 Member
    I gave it up almost a year ago and haven't looked back. I think I gained a few pounds by grabbing a snack instead of a can of diet soda. I had quit once before, but thought I could moderate the amount. Nope. I was almost immediately back at 64oz a day and I hated that I felt out of control. So, I gave it up.

    Now, I love plain carbonated water with lemon and/or lime. But it took almost a year. Initially I dealt with it because I wanted the bubbles. I don't drink it often, but when I do, I love those bubbles.

    For me, it was more about being in control of what I was consuming. I felt like I couldn't stop drinking it, and I hated that. Sometimes it's a good reminder that if I can give up my Diet Pepsi I can definitely sacrifice some foods on a daily basis.
  • Alyssa_Is_LosingIt
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt Posts: 4,696 Member
    edited January 2016
    Tenster wrote: »
    Chemicals no caffeine yes. Pepsi max has twice the amount of caffeine as normal diet Pepsi
    It does contain chemicals. Pepsi max and most over diet drinks especially contain chemicals. Aspartame is the artificial sweetener that is used and that's got a very bad press in recent times

    You're correct that it does contain chemicals.

    As does literally every tangible thing on the planet.

    Oh noes.
  • Alyssa_Is_LosingIt
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt Posts: 4,696 Member
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    Water erodes rock - just look at the Grand Canyon! Imagine what that stuff does to your body!

    You can also use water as a cleaner around your house.
  • Coley88
    Coley88 Posts: 114 Member
    Diet Vanilla Coke is delicious!
  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    You don't watch Mythbusters, do you ...

    And as for "oh no, the chemicals..." arguments, basic chemistry will tell you that dosage and concentration mean a whole lot.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    Lemons.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Sodas will dissolve nails if you leave it in soda think what it does to your body. You can use it to clean the acid off a car battery. So if it does that what will it do to you over time. Also you can use it ad a cleaner around your house. Google it and you will find out all the things you can use it for then make up your own mind. Do the research and you will find out.

    Lemons.

    Teh acidzzz!!1!!
  • Pandawdy
    Pandawdy Posts: 12 Member
    I don't think zero calorie soda contributes to weight gain. I have read before (from nutrisystem) that diet soda still causes a blood sugar spike and that's how it contributes to weight gain. I don't personally believe that. While I don't think that diet soda causes weight gain, I do believe that drinking a lot water promotes weight loss.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    Pandawdy wrote: »
    I don't think zero calorie soda contributes to weight gain. I have read before (from nutrisystem) that diet soda still causes a blood sugar spike and that's how it contributes to weight gain. I don't personally believe that. While I don't think that diet soda causes weight gain, I do believe that drinking a lot water promotes weight loss.

    It's spikes insulin if you are a rat cell, other than that the effect is negligible.

    https://examine.com/faq/do-artificial-sweeteners-spike-insulin/
  • molepigeon
    molepigeon Posts: 22 Member
    I'm type 1 diabetic and can confirm that diet drinks so nothing to my blood sugar, so in a non-diabetic I wouldn't have though it would "spike the release of insulin" :)
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Pandawdy wrote: »
    I don't think zero calorie soda contributes to weight gain. I have read before (from nutrisystem) that diet soda still causes a blood sugar spike and that's how it contributes to weight gain. I don't personally believe that. While I don't think that diet soda causes weight gain, I do believe that drinking a lot water promotes weight loss.

    Blood sugar can't appear out of nowhere.