diet soda or no diet soda

I lost quite well (too well...) even while drinking a HUGE amount of diet soda. So, yes, you can definitely still lose while drinking it. But I gave up diet soda about 10 days ago, and feel soooooo much healthier and have a ton more energy. So, I'd say why not try giving it up? You definitely deserve a vice, but maybe make your vice something that has some redeeming value for your health, like splurging on really high quality meats, or exotic fruits, or even the occasional piece of fantastic dark chocolate, or a massage, or a new type of fitness class, or....?

Yea for diet soda!

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Diet sodas and artificial sweeteners in general have the potential to make your body crave more sweets/sugar. When you're hungry, your body will crave sugar/carbohydrates, but when you consume an artificial sweetener as a response, your body is receiving chemicals that are molecularly similar to sucrose (sugar) but can't be digested. Your body will see that you needed sugar, got it (artificially) but didn't get the energy it needed; so it will adapt and crave more next time.

This article talks about it a bit:
http://www.womentowomen.com/healthyweight/dietsoda.aspx

Carbonation deteriorates your bone density. So does Caffeine when consumed in large quantities. That's before we talk about the artificial ingredients and colors that ARE KNOW carcinogenics. Fact from Biology educators.

So is arsenic and we have it in our bodies. What needs to be relayed is how much you NEED to ingest for it to be dangerous.

Jillian Michaels talks about this issue pretty heavily. She drank a 6 pack of diet soda a day, and when she got her own tv spot after the biggest loser. They had her get tested for bone density as the staple example on the show. Come to find out she had beginning stages of osteopenia. She was 35 at the time.

Did it say if she was supplementing calcium in her diet? Individuals and what their diets consist of make a difference in results. I've drank diet soda for over 20 years and have no bone density issues..

If that don't motivate you, then consider this. Soda has ZERO nutritional value, in fact it's nutritional defeceit. What's that mean? It means it takes away rather than gives. Sure a soda a week, two cans a week not a big deal. As long as your not counting it as fluid intake. Drink as much water and more for every can you drink. But moderation is the key to it all.

Disagree. There water in soda. It's a fluid and you do count it toward total fluid intake. Put it this way, if you were dehydrated and there was nothing but diet soda on hand, would you say that there wouldn't be any nutritional value to reducing dehydration?

Remember a 32 oz, is nearly three cans. And this is for diet. Don't get me started on the sugar and how high fructose interacts with your liver.

Diet soda doesn't have sugar in it.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I gave up all sodas about 5 years ago. You would not believe how much better you feel after the first month being soda free. It's just empty calories. Think of all the extra food you could be eating without those extra calories.

Diet sodas and artificial sweeteners in general have the potential to make your body crave more sweets/sugar. When you're hungry, your body will crave sugar/carbohydrates, but when you consume an artificial sweetener as a response, your body is receiving chemicals that are molecularly similar to sucrose (sugar) but can't be digested. Your body will see that you needed sugar, got it (artificially) but didn't get the energy it needed; so it will adapt and crave more next time.

This article talks about it a bit:
http://www.womentowomen.com/healthyweight/dietsoda.aspx

Articles without peer reviewed clinical studies to prove are just that.............articles.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Drink water..... Diet soda is a scam.

Artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite but unlike regular sugars they don’t deliver something that will squelch the appetite,

Yes diet soda. Lots of diet soda.

It helps me not need any sweets. I would pick it over cake any day. If I don't drink it I start to crave carbs and could easily eat an entire loaf of plain bread

Here are more serious problems with diet soda:

Phenylalanine (50 percent of aspartame)
Don't let artificial sweeteners fool you! Order now and find out the risks of using aspartame.

Phenylalanine is an amino acid normally found in the brain. Persons with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolize phenylalanine. This leads to dangerously high levels of phenylalanine in the brain (sometimes lethal). It has been shown that ingesting aspartame, especially along with carbohydrates, can lead to excess levels of phenylalanine in the brain even in persons who do not have PKU.

This is not just a theory, as many people who have eaten large amounts of aspartame over a long period of time and do not have PKU have been shown to have excessive levels of phenylalanine in the blood. Excessive levels of phenylalanine in the brain can cause the levels of seratonin in the brain to decrease, leading to emotional disorders such as depression. It was shown in human testing that phenylalanine levels of the blood were increased significantly in human subjects who chronically used aspartame.

Even a single use of aspartame raised the blood phenylalanine levels. In his testimony before the U.S. Congress, Dr. Louis J. Elsas showed that high blood phenylalanine can be concentrated in parts of the brain and is especially dangerous for infants and fetuses. He also showed that phenylalanine is metabolised much more effeciently by rodents than by humans.

One account of a case of extremely high phenylalanine levels caused by aspartame was recently published the "Wednesday Journal" in an article titled "An Aspartame Nightmare." John Cook began drinking six to eight diet drinks every day. His symptoms started out as memory loss and frequent headaches. He began to crave more aspartame-sweetened drinks. His condition deteriorated so much that he experienced wide mood swings and violent rages. Even though he did not suffer from PKU, a blood test revealed a phenylalanine level of 80 mg/dl. He also showed abnormal brain function and brain damage. After he kicked his aspartame habit, his symptoms improved dramatically.

As Blaylock points out in his book, early studies measuring phenylalanine buildup in the brain were flawed. Investigators who measured specific brain regions and not the average throughout the brain notice significant rises in phenylalanine levels. Specifically the hypothalamus, medulla oblongata, and corpus striatum areas of the brain had the largest increases in phenylalanine. Blaylock goes on to point out that excessive buildup of phenylalanine in the brain can cause schizophrenia or make one more susceptible to seizures.

Therefore, long-term, excessive use of aspartame may provid a boost to sales of seratonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac and drugs to control schizophrenia and seizures.
Methanol (aka wood alcohol/poison) (10 percent of aspartame)

Methanol/wood alcohol is a deadly poison. Some people may remember methanol as the poison that has caused some "skid row" alcoholics to end up blind or dead. Methanol is gradually released in the small intestine when the methyl group of aspartame encounter the enzyme chymotrypsin.

The absorption of methanol into the body is sped up considerably when free methanol is ingested. Free methanol is created from aspartame when it is heated to above 86 Fahrenheit (30 Centigrade). This would occur when aspartame-containing product is improperly stored or when it is heated (e.g., as part of a "food" product such as Jello).

methanolMethanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde in the body. Formaldehyde is a deadly neurotoxin. An EPA assessment of methanol states that methanol "is considered a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic." They recommend a limit of consumption of 7.8 mg/day. A one-liter (approx. 1 quart) aspartame-sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame-containing products consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily or 32 times the EPA limit.

Symptoms from methanol poisoning include headaches, ear buzzing, dizziness, nausea, gastrointestinal disturbances, weakness, vertigo, chills, memory lapses, numbness and shooting pains in the extremities, behavioral disturbances, and neuritis. The most well known problems from methanol poisoning are vision problems including misty vision, progressive contraction of visual fields, blurring of vision, obscuration of vision, retinal damage, and blindness. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, causes retinal damage, interferes with DNA replication and causes birth defects.

Due to the lack of a couple of key enzymes, humans are many times more sensitive to the toxic effects of methanol than animals. Therefore, tests of aspartame or methanol on animals do not accurately reflect the danger for humans. As pointed out by Dr. Woodrow C. Monte, director of the food science and nutrition laboratory at Arizona State University, "There are no human or mammalian studies to evaluate the possible mutagenic, teratogenic or carcinogenic effects of chronic administration of methyl alcohol."

He was so concerned about the unresolved safety issues that he filed suit with the FDA requesting a hearing to address these issues. He asked the FDA to "slow down on this soft drink issue long enough to answer some of the important questions. It's not fair that you are leaving the full burden of proof on the few of us who are concerned and have such limited resources. You must remember that you are the American public's last defense. Once you allow usage (of aspartame) there is literally nothing I or my colleagues can do to reverse the course. Aspartame will then join saccharin, the sulfiting agents, and God knows how many other questionable compounds enjoined to insult the human constitution with governmental approval." Shortly thereafter, the Commissioner of the FDA, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages, he then left for a position with G.D. Searle's public relations firm.

It has been pointed out that some fruit juices and alcoholic beverages contain small amounts of methanol. It is important to remember, however, that methanol never appears alone. In every case, ethanol is present, usually in much higher amounts. Ethanol is an antidote for methanol toxicity in humans. The troops of Desert Storm were "treated" to large amounts of aspartame-sweetened beverages, which had been heated to over 86 degrees F in the Saudi Arabian sun. Many of them returned home with numerous disorders similar to what has been seen in persons who have been chemically poisoned by formaldehyde. The free methanol in the beverages may have been a contributing factor in these illnesses. Other breakdown products of aspartame such as DKP (discussed below) may also have been a factor.

In a 1993 act that can only be described as "unconscionable," the FDA approved aspartame as an ingredient in numerous food items that would always be heated to above 86 degree F (30 degree C).
Diketopiperazine (DKP)

DKP is a byproduct of aspartame metabolism. DKP has been implicated in the occurrence of brain tumors. Olney noticed that DKP, when nitrosated in the gut, produced a compound that was similar to N-nitrosourea, a powerful brain tumor causing chemical. Some authors have said that DKP is produced after aspartame ingestion. I am not sure if that is correct. It is definitely true that DKP is formed in liquid aspartame-containing products during prolonged storage.

G.D. Searle conducted animal experiments on the safety of DKP. The FDA found numerous experimental errors occurred, including "clerical errors, mixed-up animals, animals not getting drugs they were supposed to get, pathological specimens lost because of improper handling," and many other errors. These sloppy laboratory procedures may explain why both the test and control animals had sixteen times more brain tumors than would be expected in experiments of this length.

In an ironic twist, shortly after these experimental errors were discovered, the FDA used guidelines recommended by G.D. Searle to develop the industry-wide FDA standards for good laboratory practices.

DKP has also been implicated as a cause of uterine polyps and changes in blood cholesterol by FDA Toxicologist Dr. Jacqueline Verrett in her testimony before the U.S. Senate.

Here are more serious problems with diet soda:

Phenylalanine (50 percent of aspartame)
Don't let artificial sweeteners fool you! Order now and find out the risks of using aspartame.

"Order now and find out the risks of aspartame" LOL at that one

I love me some paint thinning wood alcohol, uterine killing chemical peel.

I especially like the diet dr pepper, and diet cream soda.