Is it true that diet soda makes you gain weight?

[Gizmo j]

I heard some people say that diet soda does not really have 0 calories and that it makes you gain weight, is this true?

 

[whm1974]

I wouldn't know as I used to drink gallons of that stuff I never any gained any weight at all.

 

[balloonshark]

What happens if you drink too much diet soda

Diet soda might sound like a healthy alternative to regular soda. But those zero calories and artificial sweeteners might be doing more harm to your body than you expected.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[nakedfrog]

What happens if you drink too much diet soda

Diet soda might sound like a healthy alternative to regular soda. But those zero calories and artificial sweeteners might be doing more harm to your body than you expected.

www.businessinsider.com

Interesting article, except for this part:

Can you tell the difference between a glass of regular and diet soda? Turns out, neither can your body. And that's where the trouble starts.

Yes, I can absolutely tell the difference. Moot since I drink soda maybe a couple times a year now.

 

[balloonshark]

Interesting article, except for this part:

Yes, I can absolutely tell the difference. Moot since I drink soda maybe a couple times a year now.

I can also tell a difference. Artificial sweeteners taste sweeter to me. Then again I'm a water drinker and don't eat sweets or drink soda so my taste buds light up when I consume things that are sweet. Same thing for goes for saltly and fatty foods.

 

[spacejamz]

is this kind of a pointless question as your overall weight gain/loss is a result of your overall calories you take in versus how many you burn?

If 2 different people drink diet soda, but one eats junk food and doesn't exercise while the other eats healthy and hits the gym 4 times a week???

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always felt if I'm drinking a pop I may as well just drink the real thing. Either way it's unhealthy, and the "diet" version is doing weird things to try to make it taste decent by substituting the sugar so it may actually be even more unhealthy, even if it does not actually make me gain weight. Though I suppose it is possible for diet to still make you gain, as the fake sugar might trick your body into thinking it's real then it will just treat it the same way and store it as fat. Whether or not this is the case I don't know though.

I find since I stopped drinking it on a regular basis I don't crave it as much too so I think there is some truth to some of the science that sugar or sugar substitutes make you crave more. Every now and then I do get a craving though, and it's usually because I'm eating something else unhealthy. For example if I eat a poutine or pizza I want a Pepsi to go with it.

 

[whm1974]

How come we don't see soda with Stevia instead?

 

[CalebRockeT]

How come we don't see soda with Stevia instead?

Probably because it would be far too easy to reach or surpass the acceptable daily intake. Despite being a "natural" sweetener, over consumption can put one at risk of experiencing side effects.

 

[whm1974]

Probably because it would be far too easy to reach or surpass the acceptable daily intake. Despite being a "natural" sweetener, over consumption can put one at risk of experiencing side effects.

OK then what about monk fruit extract?

 

[CalebRockeT]

OK then what about monk fruit extract?

Shrug. I'm sure they've been trying to come up with a passable product that makes use of it. Might just not be ideal for that application.

Regarding Stevia in soda, apparently Zevia has a ton of flavors. MonkFruit Corp. also claims that a bunch of companies use monk fruit in their products, Zevia being one of them. Seems like some companies are already putting out some naturally sweetened products, if you're wanting to get down with some of that fizzy drank sans artificial sweetness.

 

[IronWing]

Does diet soda make you gain weight? Nope.

 

[realestvibe]

I'm not an expert on the subject, but all I can say is, I don't see any difference between the two. I'm a hard gainer, so food doesn't easily make me gain weight. Probably I need to visit the hospital to check my system if there's any difference.

 

[ArchAngel777]

This is a complicated subject, and I think some objections fail a basic logic test.

One argument i hear is that artificial sweeteners cause the body to expect sugar, but when it doesn't get it, this causes some sort of "problem". This same argument is used to support "Stevia!" except, that logic doesn't hold... I mean, Stevia is caloric free too, so wouldn't that sweet result in the SAME response? To me, this argument fails the logic test.

What happens to aspartame in your body?

I can already hear the first objection of the mob with pitchforks outside: “Aspartame is artificial. Of course it’s not safe! Nothing good can come of putting crazy chemicals in your body.”





Aspartame is indeed an artificial sweetener, food additive E951 (E-number). This chemical sounding classification frightens many people, but this fear is rooted in ignorance. Fear of the unknown is a basic principle of human psychology. There are about 1500 other E-numbers, of which hundreds are artificial. Ironically, the E-number is in fact a certificate of safety. It means the European Union has decided a food additive is safe for human consumption.

Still, many people don’t like the idea of consuming ‘a chemical substance’, so let’s go deeper into what happens when aspartame enters your body. Your body hydrolizes (digests) aspartame efficiently and fully. The substance is in your body for a short time and doesn’t accumulate. Aspartame gets broken down to 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10% methanol.



Toxic substances? No, all of these substrates are a natural part of common foods, such as tomatoes, milk, eggs and meat. The acceptable daily intake of aspartic acid in most people’s diets is 60 times higher than what can be converted from aspartame. For phenylalanine it’s 35 times higher. A glass of tomato juice contains 6 times more methanol than the same amount of aspartame-sweetened soda. Studies have found no toxicity and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid or phenylalanine after consuming up to 50 mg/kg aspartame a day. That’s the equivalent of about 17 cans of diet soda for the average 70 kg person.

Source: https://mennohenselmans.com/is-aspartame-safe/

I drink diet soda. Is it ideal? Nope, not at all. But the actual health warnings are BS for most people. There are, apparently, a few people who cannot actually metabolize aspartame. In that instance, yes, unhealthy. This is rare, very rare that an individual has that.

But, why is it not ideal? Tooth enamel erosion, desensitization of sweetness, potential discoloration of teeth. But adverse health effects? None. The research support this, and my own personal anecdote does as well. I have quit diet soda (and all soda and artificial sweeteners) for over a year at a time. Nothing actually changes, except my taste buds as they become more sensitized.

I cannot find the best write-up of this, but some of the chem phd students in bodybuilding.com had an incredible detailed post on why aspartame is safe. It was even more detailed than the article above, with all citation sources. I was surprised at how detailed it was.

 

[KeithP]

Probably because it would be far too easy to reach or surpass the acceptable daily intake. Despite being a "natural" sweetener, over consumption can put one at risk of experiencing side effects.

You understand the numbers in that chart are per Kg of body weight? From the link…

ADI is the Acceptable Daily Intake in mg of the substance per Kg of body weight.

-KeithP

 

[JEDIYoda]

is this kind of a pointless question as your overall weight gain/loss is a result of your overall calories you take in versus how many you burn?

If 2 different people drink diet soda, but one eats junk food and doesn't exercise while the other eats healthy and hits the gym 4 times a week???

All things being equal to and including and exercise diet coke is worse than actual coke!

 

[CalebRockeT]

You understand the numbers in that chart are per Kg of body weight? From the link…

Yes. The ADI is mg/kg of body weight. The packets/cans of coke equivalent columns highlight why stevia is likely a less popular choice for sweetening drinks. The "cans of coke" equivalent for stevia is at 6.4. I'm confident that there are plenty of people in America that drink more than 77oz of soda in a day.

The next lowest "cans of coke" equivalent figure is 36.7 for both AceK and sucralose. Stevia seems to be much more potent than all the other sweeteners on the list.

Also from the link...

With the exception of Stevia, it would be difficult to reach the ADI for any of the above substances. Note the the FDA seem to consider the newest sweetener, Advantame, to be one of the safest. Over eight hundred cans of sody, sweetened with this substance, would be required to breach the limit.

 

[Iron Woode]

How come we don't see soda with Stevia instead?

Coke makes a stevia added drink called Coke Life. So does Pepsi.

 

[whm1974]

Coke makes a stevia added drink called Coke Life. So does Pepsi.

First I heard of them. However I quit drinking soda months ago.

 

[VirtualLarry]

but some of the chem phd students in bodybuilding.com had an incredible detailed post on why aspartame is safe.

Then why does drinking diet soda containing Aspartame give some people splitting headaches, when they don't get that effect from drinking the non-diet version of that soda, or Tomato juice, or blueberries, etc.

Just from simple experience, one can learn from one's own body response, why the above isn't true for everyone.

From what I've read, diet soda screws up your insulin response, because of the sweetness, your body expects a load of sugar in the bloodstream to deal with.

 

[Torn Mind]

Diet soda is the epitome of wanting to have cake and eat it too. Long before the monstrous vegan movement gave birth to faux meats to satisfy appetite for meat without being meat, diet soda came into being to satisfy sweet tooths while not having sucrose.

Like so many foods, it is the product of corporate lobbying wanting stuff to be sold and vanity of the populace wanting such products. Don't think scientists live in an ivory tower. They live bourgeois lives and their viewpoints reflect the insulation such incomes and experience provide.

The matter of diction matters, and the general populace are simply too careless when hearing positive words. SAFE is not synonymous with BENEFICIAL. And even if determined as safe, science does not establish absolutes. It establishes truth based on high probability. There are always exceptions with the human body. Peanuts are generally safe, except for those allergic to them. So are eggs and a whole host of other foods.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I cannot find the best write-up of this, but some of the chem phd students in bodybuilding.com had an incredible detailed post on why aspartame is safe.

Decades of Science Point to Serious Health Consequences 29 Aug 2017 Accumulating evidence shows that consuming artificial sweeteners like aspartame may increase your risk of weight gain, diabetes, heart problems and more.

 

[shortylickens]

Diet soda is the epitome of wanting to have cake and eat it too. Long before the monstrous vegan movement gave birth to faux meats to satisfy appetite for meat without being meat, diet soda came into being to satisfy sweet tooths while not having sucrose.

Like so many foods, it is the product of corporate lobbying wanting stuff to be sold and vanity of the populace wanting such products. Don't think scientists live in an ivory tower. They live bourgeois lives and their viewpoints reflect the insulation such incomes and experience provide.

The matter of diction matters, and the general populace are simply too careless when hearing positive words. SAFE is not synonymous with BENEFICIAL. And even if determined as safe, science does not establish absolutes. It establishes truth based on high probability. There are always exceptions with the human body. Peanuts are generally safe, except for those allergic to them. So are eggs and a whole host of other foods.

Yeah corporations dont care if we live or die. So long as we keep paying them.
They didnt give us bottled water cuz its healthy for is, they sold it because of supply and demand.

 

[ArchAngel777]

All things being equal to and including and exercise diet coke is worse than actual coke!

This is simply not true.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Decades of Science Point to Serious Health Consequences 29 Aug 2017 Accumulating evidence shows that consuming artificial sweeteners like aspartame may increase your risk of weight gain, diabetes, heart problems and more.

Uh, sure... You do know that correlation does not equal causation? Most people that drink diet soda use it to feed their other desires. They merely take the diet soda so that they can have another dessert, which they like more than soda.

It always gets me, overweight and obese people will make any excuse in the world from making changes. You don't get diabetes from diet soda. You get it from a terrible diet of highly processed foods and general laziness, and when combined, is synergistic to create a perfect environment to develop Type 2.

Life is all about choices. You can do what you want, but unless you are following a perfectly healthy diet (water only, purely unprocessed food) and never, ever cheat, you are just full of shit trying to feign some level of "this is bad for you". I am sure YOU never do anything that is bad, right? *shrug* to each your own, but don't make excuses for your health conditions.

Going from soda to water is ideal, yes. Going from soda to diet soda is still an improvement. So saying "I'll just keep drinking regular because diet is no better" is just stupid reasoning. Unless you make the switch to water, you are basically just an excuse maker and trying to smear someone who is actually trying to improve their situation.

Joe Blow: Wait, you are eating canned veggies? Those are bad for you! Sodium and all!
Joe Blow: Continues to eats a huge ass burger with his fries.

Don't you see the irony? Changes are about improving where you are currently at, not for an excuse to *not* make changes.

It is simple people - if 80% of your calories are from minimally processed whole foods and you exercise with at least some effort 3x a week, you will be healthier than 99% of Americans. Yes, the very same ones that tell you "diet soda is terrible for you!". It really is that simple. In this case, when I see posts like the above, I see "the perfect" being the enemy of "the good". You won't ever have perfect, so choose good.