I personally drink coke zero in situations where I would otherwise have energy drinks or alcohol.

It can give you sweet cravings though.

If you're looking for sweet... ....

Some folks prefer Splenda (sucralose) over aspartame and/or stevia to either.

You can get stevia in extremely-concentrated powders or in liquid form diluted with erythritol in little green squirt bottles.

Pure stevia will get bitter on you in more than tiny amounts (1/32 tsp. for 8 oz. of coffee!), but you can give the green bottle a gentle squirt and wind up with about the same sweetness.

I cut the Diet Coke and Coke Zero out for the first two weeks of my LCHF diet and drank only water, but have now brought back an occasional diet/zero coke. There are no carbs so they are allowed, HOWEVER, I have read but not found for me, that drinking the diet sodas will make some people crave sugar (ie carbs) and then people get derailed from LCHF. It hasnt happened to me, but be aware of it and if it happens to you, know that you should stay away.

MissMorts wrote: »

Thanks guys, has anyone found any truth to the runout that even a "zero" sofa can play silly buggers with the way your body processes? i.e. It still has the profile of sugar so your body still physically reacts the same way?

I hear this a lot and I realize that for some people sugary taste can be a trigger to desire more sugar, but for the most part, the 'proof' behind the assertion is correlation and not causation.

I do drink the occasional diet coke, usually when I'm out. I don't find it has the craving effect on me now, however when I was having eating high carb it definitely did. Now, I've noticed it causes slight inflammation (feet swell). Inflammation was a huge thing for me pre-keto so I really notice it when it occurs now that it's much less prominent overall.

There have been discussions about this before and I know there are studies that suggest people lose less weight and even continue to gain while drinking diet sodas.
Theories that I've seen are that the taste of the sweetness triggers an insulin response in anticipation of real sugar coming in. Your body would then balance out that unnecessary insulin by secreting glycogen. Easy enough fix for the body, but the end result is still insulin shuttling glucose into cells. Your body just had to make the glucose instead. I know I've read things that show evidence of this but I don't have anything saved to share.
The other idea is relating the gut bacteria disturbance from the artificial sweeteners. There is evidence for this stuff out there too. Again I don't have it to share. Consider these possible points to continue your personal research.
Having the wrong mix of gut bacteria has been proven to cause weight gain, so I personally believe there really is plenty of reason to avoid this stuff.
Everyone says, "I don't have any issues with it", but can you really be sure? You can't unless you experiment for long enough time to matter for yourself.
I say I don't have issues with small amounts of liquid stevia, but I base that off the fact that doesn't seem to stir up sugar cravings for me. I can't really know that I wouldn't see some benefit from completely eliminating it unless I actually do that. I'm not too proud to admit, that at this point, I'm happy enough to just keep it very limited. It's ok to make that choice too. But, in the end, I can't honestly say that I wouldn't be better off without it. There's certainly a faint scent of addictive behavior in the air with my reluctance to make that commitment and that's something I don't like one bit. But, I will stay aware of that and it prevents it from becoming a regular thing in my day.

My hubby & I like a Zevia stevia sweetened soda once in a while... the gingerale is pretty good. If you particularly like a specific cola brand you probably won't like the Zevia cola, but the clear (no food colouring) cream soda is kinda yummy to try.