Who else loves diet coke?

I love diet coke!

butcher206 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

butcher206 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

butcher206 wrote: »

HoldTheDoor13 wrote: »

I drink an irresponsible amount of Diet Coke.

It's super addicting. There's a lot of brain chemistry manipulation going on, and it's deeply psychological as well.

No. No. And No.

You have people in this thread talking about how they drink up to 6 liters a day, or have been drinking it for 25+ years, and you're going to say it's not addicting at all?

That's correct. Diet soda isn't addictive. If it is caffeinated, there are addictive properties to caffeine, but that is not in every diet soda and not exclusive to diet soda....

For what it's worth, I have consumed diet soda for ~25 years and given it up twice for pregnancy and a few times for Lent. Never experienced withdrawals or physical side effects.

Also, it was posted at the top of the thread, but you may want to give this a read:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1308408/why-aspartame-isnt-scary

I never mentioned aspartame or said that it was scary. You seem to be viewing "addicted" in the traditional medical sense, as characterized by tolerance and physical withdrawal, and I meant it in the broad sense; "persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful".

Let me ask you: why did you give it up for your pregnancy? Maybe because you know / were told by your health care practitioner that it contains harmful ingredients that could have negatively impacted your child's health?

I'm not arguing with you, we're just not viewing my original statement the same way, so let me clarify myself. Almost everybody drinks diet soda as a replacement for sugar reward-stimulus (regular soda replacement) and what I mean by "super addicting", "deeply psychological", and "brain chemistry manipulation" is merely that the user is attempting to replicate this common sugar fix stimuli. In reality the brain sees artificial sweeteners as something else completely; not as sugar. This increases habituation, or more plainly creates the need to drink larger and larger amounts of diet soda. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/

!

But diet soda isn't known by the user to be harmful - although i could understand someone giving it up in pregnancy on account of the caffeine - the way some people switch to decaf coffee in pregnancy.

As I have said in these threads before, I regularly drink diet sodas, probably on average about 3 cans/week

But I am addicted to weetbix - have had them for breakfast most days for around 25 years

paperpudding wrote: »

butcher206 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

butcher206 wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

butcher206 wrote: »

HoldTheDoor13 wrote: »

I drink an irresponsible amount of Diet Coke.

It's super addicting. There's a lot of brain chemistry manipulation going on, and it's deeply psychological as well.

No. No. And No.

You have people in this thread talking about how they drink up to 6 liters a day, or have been drinking it for 25+ years, and you're going to say it's not addicting at all?

That's correct. Diet soda isn't addictive. If it is caffeinated, there are addictive properties to caffeine, but that is not in every diet soda and not exclusive to diet soda....

For what it's worth, I have consumed diet soda for ~25 years and given it up twice for pregnancy and a few times for Lent. Never experienced withdrawals or physical side effects.

Also, it was posted at the top of the thread, but you may want to give this a read:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1308408/why-aspartame-isnt-scary

I never mentioned aspartame or said that it was scary. You seem to be viewing "addicted" in the traditional medical sense, as characterized by tolerance and physical withdrawal, and I meant it in the broad sense; "persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful".

Let me ask you: why did you give it up for your pregnancy? Maybe because you know / were told by your health care practitioner that it contains harmful ingredients that could have negatively impacted your child's health?

I'm not arguing with you, we're just not viewing my original statement the same way, so let me clarify myself. Almost everybody drinks diet soda as a replacement for sugar reward-stimulus (regular soda replacement) and what I mean by "super addicting", "deeply psychological", and "brain chemistry manipulation" is merely that the user is attempting to replicate this common sugar fix stimuli. In reality the brain sees artificial sweeteners as something else completely; not as sugar. This increases habituation, or more plainly creates the need to drink larger and larger amounts of diet soda. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892765/

!

But diet soda isn't known by the user to be harmful

Thanks for bringing that up; that was part of the "Deeply psychological" thing that I mentioned but I neglected to expand upon. Most people also substitute soda with diet soda because or/and justify it with the thinking "it isn't soda" or "this is a better option than 'regular' soda". There's all sorts of mental gymnastics that occur: aspartame is safe to consume and a better alternative to sugar, no calories is better than empty calories and still satisfy the soda craving; I mean it's right there on the name of the cans. "Diet" coke. Most people think "diet" = having to restrict yourself from the things you love to lose weight. "I can't have soda because I'm on a diet and soda is bad... but wait, this is "diet soda" not soda! I can have this! I can have as much as I want of it too!" And there-in lies a major psychological component. It IS regular soda. It's just marketing that makes people think it's better, when in reality it's highly highly corrosive and horrible for your health especially in massive quantities. And here we are on a Calories In < Calories Out platform, built on the very idea that you can eat what you want as long as you control the amounts, and I think the marketing and psychology behind diet sodas is largely illogical and flawed.

Look; obviously not everyone drinks diet soda for these reasons, even in this thread there's plenty of evidence and people that directly contradict this. I feel like I'm being super negative in this thread and wnat to say that's not my intention. I still enjoy 'diet' soda every now and then it's arrogant and hypocritical to think others don't as well. I don't want to ruin that for anybody else! People can do what they want, I don't want to drag anybodys mood down, only encourage and support.

paperpudding wrote: »

I disagree.

I dont think there is any deeply psychological thing going on at all - nor do people need to do mental gymnastics to justify drinking diet soda.

Nor does the can neccesarily say diet on it - coke zero and pepsi max don't at all, for example.

and 'it isnt diet soda - it IS regular soda' - that is a nonsense statement.

No, regular soda has lots of sugar and calories, hence people swap to diet version to avoid one or both of those

Or they just like the taste.

k

You can nitpick apart every single sentence one at a time and argue petty details and semantics all day; they're all Soft Drinks. I'm not going back and forth especially when you claim "I disagree" then type one of my examples from the quote you're disagreeing with

Amazing

Anyway un-starring this topic and moving on