Diet Soda and Weight Loss

The evidence supports the obvious: lower-calorie beverages contribute to a calorie deficit which, in turn, leads to weight loss.

Most people would do well to forget they ever heard the word "insulin". They should also stop reading articles about diet soda. Nothing good will come of it.

Yeah it has nothing to do with the ingredients or biological process, it has to do with the number of calories. And there's this... if you're craving sugar and you eat or drink something that's sugar free, ya know, trying to trick your mind, your brain gets all ramped up for the sugar rush... like thinking "it's coming! it's coming, get ready, here it comes......" and then nothing. So you end up craving it even more which may lead to over doing it.

First, aspertame doesn't trigger insulin.

Second, it doesn't matter. People seem to think that insulin trumps calories, and that is not so. What insulin does (greatly simplified) is shuttle things in your body where they need to go. This includes protein to the muscles, and -- as relevant here -- glucose from the blood to where it should go. Insulin is important, because it gets glucose circulating in the blood where it needs to go as part of the process of converting food into energy. Someone who is insulin resistant has trouble doing this since their cells are resistant to insulin, so the glucose doesn't get stored or used. Someone healthy can use the insulin. Insulin cannot store glucose as fat when there's no glucose to store.

Even if you have consumed food that gets broken down into sugar, including glucose -- and diet soda simply cannot be, the whole idea makes no sense -- if you don't have full glycogen stores, and the fact is that you likely will not if you have been eating at a deficit, it won't be stored as fat, but goes to the glycogen stores. If those stores are full, it will be converted into fat and stored in the cells, but that's a more complicated process so doesn't happen preferentially.

The most important fact is that how much your body needs to burn to operate doesn't change as a result of spiking insulin or allowing insulin to do its job. You can't "hack" the system, as some would claim, by avoiding insulin--you still use only what you need and store extra as fat. And you won't magically not burn calories that you DO need to fuel the activity you do because you have some insulin running around doing its job.

All that happens is that the timing of when you are running on fat vs. glucose may change (we run on both off and on or, more typically, at the same time, throughout the day). So, if you did happen to have full glycogen stores and eat a banana or some bread or something (NOT a diet soda, though), your body might well store some fat, but if you are in a deficit overall then your body will burn more fat than it stores, so it makes no difference.

Similarly, if you eat low carb, you will burn more fat, but you are also eating more fat -- it evens out. My understanding is that the percentage of fat/carbs you burn pretty much reflects what you eat. You can't trick the body into basically wasting energy (this would be bad evolutionarily, as we had food scarcity as a problem and couldn't worry about macros), and similarly -- although the body would like it -- you can't make the body run without energy or store fat when no food has been consumed as those mangled claims about diet soda would have it.

What I think it's really getting at is a theory (not well supported) that consuming diet soda may cause you to crave sugar foods, since the body (allegedly, and depending on the sweetener) reacts as if it's expecting it. The thing they are trying to explain is that on average people who drink diet soda aren't thinner than those who drink non diet (I think the answer to this is obvious, but whatever--point is these AREN'T people counting calories). One thing that seems to be true for SOME people is they report more desire for sweets when drinking diet soda (compared to not, not necessarily compared to when drinking soda). But for many people that is not true, so better to go by actual experience, IMO.

I switched from regular soda to all diet soda and soda water with 0 calories. And I've lost 43 pounds in 96 days. So I'm pretty sure its a myth.

alexreyn13 wrote: »

"Artificial sweeteners trigger insulin, which sends your body into fat storage mode and leads to weight gain."

I've seen this phrase a few times in articles that discuss the effects of diet soda and weight loss. Is there actually any evidence or real science behind this statement?

Hmmm - I lost 75 pounds in 18 months while drinking bourbon mixed with diet 7-Up pretty much daily. I counted the calories too and made sure I left room for them or exercised enough that I was still in a deficit when i had my night-cap.

Calories in < calories out = weight loss

It's really that simple.

amber4625 wrote: »

I thought water was the most researched. I think I'm going to stick with the clear stuff! Y'all do what you want. Wasn't trying to upset anyone

That is fine, but please stop spreading the fear mongering false facts.