Diet Soda

The caffeine causes you to excrete about the same amount of fluid as you took in

Not true. If you don't drink a lot of coffee it hydrates almost as much as water. If you drink a lot, it ends up being the same as neat water.

http://www.divinecaroline.com/22178/46361-coffee-makes-dehydrated-say-what

I learned the same thing when I did weight watchers back in 2001. They said you should always have a glass of water for every soda or coffee you drink.

Things have changed in the last 10 years. More studies have been carried out.

Diet Soda is NOT water!!

Well spotted!

But, the OP was asking does it COUNT as water, presumable for the daily intake, in which case yes, it does count towards your daily hydration total.

Thanks so much for the infor. I am trying to cut down to 1 per day. So far pretty good only one per day for the last week, and I drink caffeine free diet coke, but my aim is to be off them very soon, I will not buy anymore after the 12 pack I have now. I am up to 10 glasses a day with a coke only every other day for this week. Again thanks for the post, and I never count my 1 coke as part of my water intake.

My aunty nearly died from overhydration. They later found out she had a brain tumour, which was affecting her obsessive need for water.

I was told by my doctor that any fluid can be counted towards your wate intake. Even though my friend tried to tell nme other wise. NO it is not pure water but it still counts. I lost a hell of a lot of weight drinking cordial instead of water. It ahs taken me years to be able to drink water without any. I hate fizzy drinks though.

Again, SCIENCE. You get 20-30% of your hydration requirements from food. That's why when you are thirsty it's easy to mistake it for being hungry, and why you stop feeling hungry after eating, because your body got the fluid it needed for hydration purposes out of the food you ate.

The "Drink so much water" rule is a MYTH spread by the bottled water industry to get people to buy more bottled water. Go ahead, look it up. Also, read the actual study it's based on, as the only thing the study said was that properly hydrated people are healthier than dehydrated people, and nowhere in the study did it say people needed to drink any more water than they already were.

Soda is 90% water. Juice is 90% water, coffee and tea are 90% water, even beer is 90% water. All of these things hydrate you perfectly fine. Hell, in the middle ages humans pretty much lived on beer, as they didn't have water filtration systems, and needed the alcohol in the beer to kill the harmful bacteria in the water.

There is no scientific or health based reason to limit your drinking to only plain water.

I hate to revive a dead thread, but after stopping drinking caffeinated beverages, I've changed my position entirely. I didn't replace the many ounces of diet pop I was drinking and within a week was getting crippling dehydration headaches because my fluid intake was so much lower than normal. I would absolutely count diet pop as water now.

You can use it for hydrating yourself I suppose, but I like to think only water is water.

You can think of only water as water, that's up to you.

Your body however doesn't think like that, and will just grab it anyway, in the same way you may not log everything, but your body does

You are exactly right!! That is what the artificial sweetners in diet soda's do... they spike insulin levels which make you crave other foods more!! make sure you stay away from them!

Stop making things up.

Effect of the artificial sweetener, sucralose, on gastric emptying and incretin hormone release in healthy subjects

We conclude that sucralose, delivered by intragastric infusion, does not stimulate insulin, GLP-1, or GIP release or slow gastric emptying in healthy humans.

http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/296/4/G735

Does it count as a water?

It's calorie free, but it contains sodium like 30-40mg. It's not going to hinder your progress in weight loss. I only drink DIET sodas, teas. etc. But when I drink Diet soda, it makes does get me feel a bit bloated after I finish a bottle or a drink. And I get the carbonation build up and burp a lot. Lol

Still it does dehydrate you so be sure be sure to drink water too.

Why do you say this, when it's been proven that the diuretic effect of caffeine in drinks is far, far outweighed by the actual fluid in said drink?