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Diet soda and weight loss?

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Replies

  • ericago21
    ericago21 Posts: 1 Member
    Diet soda is 0 calories so it will not affect your calorie balance thus not affecting weight loss. The argument related to insulin release is only true for patients with diabetes. These results were based on one large study in Great Britain; and later refuted by a study in Canada making this a controversial topic requiring further investigation. Ultimately, diet soda will not interfere with weight loss in non-diabetic persons. However, the carbonation in diet sodas may cause bloating and a feeling of fullness leading to decreased consumption of highly-nutritive foods. Also, all sodas are very acidic which can damage tooth enamel and aggravate acid reflux. (This is coming from a pharmacist who manages weight management and diabetes coaching programs at our pharmacy).
  • Mikeyloye
    Mikeyloye Posts: 43 Member
    Not read every ones post but my experiences personally is that sweetener is worse forms then sugar I feel awful and I still need sugar fix so I avoid all soda/fizzy drinks water only for me
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
    _ankylosaurus_ wrote: »
    Her reasoning is that the body processes artificial sweetener the same way that it processes sugar-with a release of insulin. According to her, the body "believes" it's consuming sugar. The excess insulin, she says, leads to weight gain. Besides that rudimentary explanation, I haven't inquired more.

    excess insulin does not change the laws of math and science...
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,139 Member
    alexzenk86 wrote: »
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »
    alexzenk86 wrote: »
    I would stay away from diet anything. I used to have a huge dependency on soda, and I know what it can do to the body. The chemicals they put in soda alone should make you second question yourself when you drink diet soda. Just because it has 0 calories doesn't make it healthy. Pay attention to they put into the drink. I stick to water, coffee and tea.

    Which chemicals would be the worrisome ones?

    Lets go to school shall we?

    First off, your body was never mean to digest any of the ingredients listed in soda. Past the first ingredient, and starting with Caramel E150D ( notice I'm looking at diet coke) this has been linked to cancer. To me, don't want to consume that. Sorry. Next ingredient, sweetners, Aspartame, and Acesulfame K, Both were produced to be safe alternatives to using sugar, yet have been linked to many healthy problems over the years. Next, Phosphoric Acid, this is the product you hear about that eats away at bones, teeth, and causes kidney stones. Why is it soda you ask?? Just to give it a sharp taste...Next, probably the two least harmful ingredients depending on the person, caffeine and citric acid.

    This is why I stopped drinking soda. Most of these companies do not care about you as a person. They want to make money! So they dump all this crap into their drinks not caring what it does to the inside of a person, so they can make a profit.

    are you also concerned about the chemicals in strawberries and other fruits...

  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
    KAYRRIE wrote: »
    _ankylosaurus_ wrote: »
    So I have a huge diet soda habit and a friend at work insists that despite being 0 calories, diet soda is negatively impacting my weight loss.

    Thoughts?

    I highly agree. 1st that fake sugar they put in it is horrible for you. But most importantly, the sodium they use to flavor it is so bad for your heart and causes you to swell. That's what causes water retention, and 'causes your kidneys to over work because it's something that's not natural for us. Water would be your best bet, and believe me I know what soda withrawal feels like, I was a soda addict too. Loved my soda, and once in a blue I sneak in a soda and it's the equivalent of eating an amazin piece of cake for me when i drink it. Cause of that feeling, i had to ban it from my house. You'll feel that prob for the 1st week or 2 but it really does get easier. If you don't feel you can quit, maybe you can just challenge yourself not to drink it for 1 or 2 weeks and see how you feel at the end of that. Wish you the best with this.

    LOL, I had heart disease, reverse it while drinking diet soda.

    Stop giving out bad information.
  • tomteboda
    tomteboda Posts: 2,171 Member
    I think there's nothing wrong with diet soda. If its replacing caloric beverages and not being used as an excuse to overeat, it's a wonderful aid in weight loss efforts. The peer-reviewed literature generally agrees with this position (nod to a few outliers in the very new field of microbiome analysis).
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    This is about diet soda. Diet soda has no sugar. It's not less healthy than regular, there's some evidence that regular tends to have negative effects (largely because drinking calories leads to overindulgence) and not any compelling evidence against diet. I mostly drink coffee for my caffeine fix (because I love it so much -- I'm not that into sweet beverages), but I'm super skeptical about the claim that that's healthier than lower caffeine options like diet soda.
  • Harleyb87
    Harleyb87 Posts: 279 Member
    As many said before I'm sure there are people that diet soda effects negatively. It doesn't make me crave sugar and I lost over 200 pounds at one point in my life drinking it. Currently I've recently lost about 35 pounds and I'm drinking it. Soo I'm gonna go ahead and say it's not hurting my weight loss.
  • khernan1964
    khernan1964 Posts: 11 Member
    http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/diet-soda/faq-20057855
    Added that link to Mayo Clinic response - for me soda, even diet is no good. Every person is different, I would suggest limiting it to 1 or 2 a day and get your water in for sure. I find a lot in my circles that the soda addicts never drink water and for weigh loss that's not good. Best of luck!
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    khernan1964 wrote: »
    http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/diet-soda/faq-20057855
    Added that link to Mayo Clinic response - for me soda, even diet is no good. Every person is different, I would suggest limiting it to 1 or 2 a day and get your water in for sure. I find a lot in my circles that the soda addicts never drink water and for weigh loss that's not good. Best of luck!

    Diet soda IS mostly water.
    Also, not addictive.
  • Yivs_87
    Yivs_87 Posts: 246 Member
    For me diet soda is bad mostly because it's soda - it can has a very negative effect on your teeth if you think a lot of soda and your teeth are not of supreme health, or on your stomach if you have ulcers or it's more sensitive, etc. So while it might not be healthy or good for your overall health state, it is certainly not having a negative effect on weight loss - CICO, you know. Now, if after drinking a can of diet coke you "feel" like you must finish a chocolate cake and you do it... that's a whole other story. But I'm quite sure that those "feelings" would be there even if you drink only clean natural water.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,386 MFP Moderator
    edited April 2016
    ericago21 wrote: »
    Diet soda is 0 calories so it will not affect your calorie balance thus not affecting weight loss. The argument related to insulin release is only true for patients with diabetes. These results were based on one large study in Great Britain; and later refuted by a study in Canada making this a controversial topic requiring further investigation. Ultimately, diet soda will not interfere with weight loss in non-diabetic persons. However, the carbonation in diet sodas may cause bloating and a feeling of fullness leading to decreased consumption of highly-nutritive foods. Also, all sodas are very acidic which can damage tooth enamel and aggravate acid reflux. (This is coming from a pharmacist who manages weight management and diabetes coaching programs at our pharmacy).

    Diet soda is recommended to diabetics (if soda is desired) as it does not spike insulin. It uses an artificial sweetener (composed of amino acids) and not sugar.
  • bpetrosky
    bpetrosky Posts: 3,911 Member
    Diet soda held me down and forced fed me a whole box of Twinkies. And spayed my cat. Bad diet soda.

    Or did none of those things and was a tasty refreshing beverage that I could enjoy occasionally without adding calories to my diet.
  • xmichaelyx
    xmichaelyx Posts: 883 Member
    klmcneil1 wrote: »
    I wouldn't be so quick to say that your friend is wrong. There's a lot of complexity here that people above are ignoring:
    1. There are several high-quality, long-term studies that show an association between artificial sweeteners and weight gain and diabetes, even after controlling for the fact that heavier people use are more likely to use artificial sweeteners. (For example: "Diet soda intake and risk of incident metabolic syndrome and Type 2 diabetes in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis," Diabetes Care (2009); "Dietary intake and the development of the metabolic syndrome: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study," Circulation (2008).)
    2. Artificial sweeteners are not inert chemicals. They seems to affect the brain, including the appetite and reward pathways. (See "The effect of non-caloric sweeteners on cognition, choice and post-consumption satisfaction," Appetite (2014); "Sucralose, a synthetic organochorine sweetener: overview of biological issues," J Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health (2013); "Altered processing of sweet taste in the brain of diet soda drinkers," Physiology & Behavior (2012); "Sucralose affects glycemic and hormonal responses to an oral glucose load," Diabetes Care (2013).

    From the Abstract of your #2: "The effect of sucralose on first-pass drug metabolism in humans, however, has not yet been determined."

    Food-oriented studies on humans are notoriously low-quality (for obvious reasons), and these are no different. And it's never clear to what extent mice/rat studies can be extrapolated to humans.
    There's also good indications that the effects mentioned above are highly individualized, based on peoples' genetics and other factors that aren't wholly understood

    This is really all that needs to be said. No one knows exactly what the effects might be, but people aren't dropping dead and the laws of thermodynamics are still in play, so there's really no reason to avoid diet soda at this point. Unless you don't like it, that is.

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