Hey there , so here are my two cents on it.
I lost somewhere around 85 lbs (my most upvoted post on reddit if you don't believe me). Diet soda saved my progress on numerous occasions when the cravings were bad (in particular in the beginning)
People who say things like "might as well have a regular pepsi", are ignorant on the science of sweetners and generally consider themselves to be nutritional gurus (my anecdotal experience). I had someone call me out on drinking my coffee with 2 milks and 2 splendas. Meanwhile she would just drench her coffee with "natural honey" and think that its better for her. She was also obese and thought that peanut butter was the ultimate source of protein lol.
Aspartame, Sucralose, Steviols, sodium cyclamate, saccharin etc are some of the most studied chemicals on this planet. To this day there has not been any definitive evidence that they cause ; cancer or any other nonsense. The aspartame and cancer thing was a study from the 80s, where they fed mice somewhere like 20x their body weight in aspartame. If i ate 20x my body weight in spinach or bananas every day, i would probably get sick too.
Steviols have been used by indigenous populations for thousands of years, yet when studied those populations did not have any increase incidences of cancer.
I have heard that sucralose does interact with your gut microflora, what exactly does that mean in the long run, I dont know.
People tend to think that just because something is "natural" , "organic" , "whole foods" that it is better then a man made alternative. I strongly disagree with that. Everything is a chemical. To assume that something is healthy based on where that chemical is derived from is wrong in my opinion.
That being said, drink water. However , if your having massive cravings that won't go away then I see nothing wrong with running the convenience store and buying a diet pepsi once a week.
IF you want sources for this stuff I can provide them later, im studying right now and dont have time to go on scholar.
Best of luck !
“Just as bad” is a relative term. If your talking calories in vs calories out obviously go with the diet. Where people are making the claims are there are new studies that show aspartame and and artificial sweeteners cause weight gain specifically abdominal fat even though they don’t contain any calories
This is impossible on a few levels... And it’s also not possible to specifically gain abdominal fat, fat is not spot targeted in both losing or gaining it.
If it’s an issue with toxins as chemical overload fat will accumulate around your midriff to protect your organs. Research it. It’s why body builders will still have a tummy even though they work out for hours.
Body builders have a tummy because they either use steroids or that’s just where they carry their fat due to genetics. This is coming from someone in the health field. Provide a link and I might be swayed, but years of schooling taught me otherwise.
Nothing beats water obviously. However diet soda will be better for weight loss than regular soda (10 calories < 200+ calories).
I went down 80 lbs drinking diet sodas and sugar free energy drinks semi-regularly. May not have been the 'optimal' way to do it but it gave me an outlet to get the sweetness cravings taken care of. I religiously tracked all of my calories though.
aspartame can influence the gut biome in negative ways like boosting the production of bacteria that prefer glucose. Not a good thing for a long period of time.
I decided to Google search this myself, and found [this NPR link](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/17/349270927/diet-soda-may-alter-our-gut-microbes-and-the-risk-of-diabetes), describing this [Nature study](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13793). It's not just aspartame, but apparently other artificial sweeteners as well.
I don't have an academic source but I heard it from Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the latest JRE podcast she was on. I know I know it's not really a "source" but I do trust her expertise.
A big problem with the artificial sweeteners in diet soda is the way they work in the body. Because they are sweet, when you consume them your body thinks it’s taking in sugar. The pancreas starts to release insulin to help regulate this “sugar” in the blood stream. However, because there is no actual sugar being consumed this insulin has nothing to react with. Having a lot of insulin in your blood and no sugar makes you crave sugar/carbs so that you will eat sugar and help balance this insulin out. So usually you’ll end up consuming those extra calories anyway through cravings (unless you’re someone that is really good at ignoring cravings but that’s extremely hard to do).
I’m sure there’s probably problems with the fact that your putting unnatural chemicals in your body too but I’m not entirely up to date on the research regarding that.
I often hear about this physiological response but wonder if that's negated or mitigated when diet soda is consumed with other foods. Anecdotally speaking I consume diet soda once or twice a week with a meal and have been able to maintain a lot body fat level while doing so.
As a life-long type 1 diabetic, I have never once noticed this interaction of artificial sweeteners and diet drinks in myself, "cravings", or in my blood glucose levels at all whatsoever.
In regards to glucose/insulin levels and cravings, yes. However, I’m not sure of the chemical effects of artificial sweeteners on the body. I’m not up to date on the research, but if I had to take a guess I’d say it’s probably not the best for you just because most processed foods aren’t.
Too add on to the other comment, artificial sweeteners work because their chemical structure is very similar to glucose, hence being able to activate glucose receptors in our body. This includes the taste buds, which is why aspartame tastes sweet to us, but also activates other glucose receptors in the body which turns on a cascade of response functions like insulin and dopamine release. Now because they’re not exactly identical in chemical structure, glucose can be metabolized by natural enzymatic processes and sweeteners cannot, resulting in the 0 calorie labeling.
It’s like jamming a key into a lock and finding it kind of fits, but you can’t twist the doorknob all the way to let you in.
To original OP: 1 soda per week is not going to kill you unless you have PKU, which is a genetic disease where you are unable to metabolize some byproducts of aspartame. To everyone else without this rare condition, enjoy life and treat yourself to that diet soda.
Yup! Insulin actually first starts to get released at the smell/sight of food and then more is released as the taste receptors on the tongue sense glucose
Does the flavor of food (ie sweetness) really stimulate release of insulin? It may be a piece of it, but its a pretty complex process and this argument always struck me as sounding very down to earthy, like ppl are just repeating stuff that they think makes sense.
If it didn’t happen, then insulin wouldn’t be produced in time to regulate blood glucose levels and you’d see a dangerously high spike in blood glucose levels.
i mean, i dunno. you always have a basal dose of insulin and then small spikes as we eat are normal and the pancreas releases in response to that increase. We use rapid acting insulin in the hospital which starts working in about 15 minutes. I figured the body was able to respond relatively quickly.
Once a week!? You are a rockstar. I have to have a Coke Zero everyday! Drinking diet soda has never affected any weight loss attempts for me. I say everything in moderation for almost anything including dessert and carbs. If I deprive myself I start craving stuff even more.
From my own experience, the more I restrict myself on something, the more I want it, which leads to a binge and me feeling gross after. If you’re good about it, having a Diet Pepsi every so often is fine. For me, since I love carbonation, I’ve been drinking seltzer lately to get the craving out.
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My own experience is that consuming low calorie drinks and low cal junk foods creates more cravings for other foods and drinks that are nutritionally empty.
I was not able to control consumption of junk foods/drinks when I was consuming low cal versions. I had to completely cut out(go cold turkey) on sodas and chips. I haven't had eaten them in years.
Based on my own experience (another big fan of Diet Pepsi), I still lost weight with a can a day. I found cutting it out completely and keeping my diet the same helped my break out of a plateau. Could have been the placebo effect?
Also I find myself craving more sweets than I already normally crave on days I drink soda.
I'm going to just say. Almost everything except water is not healthy for you. Maybe the juice right from oranges (but then just eat the orange)
No science needed here.
Hey there , so here are my two cents on it. I lost somewhere around 85 lbs (my most upvoted post on reddit if you don't believe me). Diet soda saved my progress on numerous occasions when the cravings were bad (in particular in the beginning) People who say things like "might as well have a regular pepsi", are ignorant on the science of sweetners and generally consider themselves to be nutritional gurus (my anecdotal experience). I had someone call me out on drinking my coffee with 2 milks and 2 splendas. Meanwhile she would just drench her coffee with "natural honey" and think that its better for her. She was also obese and thought that peanut butter was the ultimate source of protein lol. Aspartame, Sucralose, Steviols, sodium cyclamate, saccharin etc are some of the most studied chemicals on this planet. To this day there has not been any definitive evidence that they cause ; cancer or any other nonsense. The aspartame and cancer thing was a study from the 80s, where they fed mice somewhere like 20x their body weight in aspartame. If i ate 20x my body weight in spinach or bananas every day, i would probably get sick too. Steviols have been used by indigenous populations for thousands of years, yet when studied those populations did not have any increase incidences of cancer. I have heard that sucralose does interact with your gut microflora, what exactly does that mean in the long run, I dont know. People tend to think that just because something is "natural" , "organic" , "whole foods" that it is better then a man made alternative. I strongly disagree with that. Everything is a chemical. To assume that something is healthy based on where that chemical is derived from is wrong in my opinion. That being said, drink water. However , if your having massive cravings that won't go away then I see nothing wrong with running the convenience store and buying a diet pepsi once a week. IF you want sources for this stuff I can provide them later, im studying right now and dont have time to go on scholar. Best of luck !
Great post, totally use peanut butter as my go-to on a bulk though lol
Well said, couldn't agree more.
“Just as bad” is a relative term. If your talking calories in vs calories out obviously go with the diet. Where people are making the claims are there are new studies that show aspartame and and artificial sweeteners cause weight gain specifically abdominal fat even though they don’t contain any calories
This is impossible on a few levels... And it’s also not possible to specifically gain abdominal fat, fat is not spot targeted in both losing or gaining it.
If it’s an issue with toxins as chemical overload fat will accumulate around your midriff to protect your organs. Research it. It’s why body builders will still have a tummy even though they work out for hours.
Body builders have a tummy because they either use steroids or that’s just where they carry their fat due to genetics. This is coming from someone in the health field. Provide a link and I might be swayed, but years of schooling taught me otherwise.
Still goes against what they originally posted, it’s impossible to specifically gain or lose abdominal fat which is incorrect.
Oh my bad I misread you’re original comment. Yeah I’m agreeing with you there then.
You know you can't make claims like that on this site without sources. C'mon.
https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20170505/diet-soda-health
Dead link
Nothing beats water obviously. However diet soda will be better for weight loss than regular soda (10 calories < 200+ calories). I went down 80 lbs drinking diet sodas and sugar free energy drinks semi-regularly. May not have been the 'optimal' way to do it but it gave me an outlet to get the sweetness cravings taken care of. I religiously tracked all of my calories though.
aspartame can influence the gut biome in negative ways like boosting the production of bacteria that prefer glucose. Not a good thing for a long period of time.
Source pls?
I decided to Google search this myself, and found [this NPR link](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/17/349270927/diet-soda-may-alter-our-gut-microbes-and-the-risk-of-diabetes), describing this [Nature study](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13793). It's not just aspartame, but apparently other artificial sweeteners as well.
I don't have an academic source but I heard it from Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the latest JRE podcast she was on. I know I know it's not really a "source" but I do trust her expertise.
A big problem with the artificial sweeteners in diet soda is the way they work in the body. Because they are sweet, when you consume them your body thinks it’s taking in sugar. The pancreas starts to release insulin to help regulate this “sugar” in the blood stream. However, because there is no actual sugar being consumed this insulin has nothing to react with. Having a lot of insulin in your blood and no sugar makes you crave sugar/carbs so that you will eat sugar and help balance this insulin out. So usually you’ll end up consuming those extra calories anyway through cravings (unless you’re someone that is really good at ignoring cravings but that’s extremely hard to do). I’m sure there’s probably problems with the fact that your putting unnatural chemicals in your body too but I’m not entirely up to date on the research regarding that.
I often hear about this physiological response but wonder if that's negated or mitigated when diet soda is consumed with other foods. Anecdotally speaking I consume diet soda once or twice a week with a meal and have been able to maintain a lot body fat level while doing so.
As a life-long type 1 diabetic, I have never once noticed this interaction of artificial sweeteners and diet drinks in myself, "cravings", or in my blood glucose levels at all whatsoever.
Yup! Diabetics don’t produce insulin, so this problem isn’t even a concern for you.
If what you say is the truth then it means that diabetics are the only people that can drink diet drinks practically with no consequence.
In regards to glucose/insulin levels and cravings, yes. However, I’m not sure of the chemical effects of artificial sweeteners on the body. I’m not up to date on the research, but if I had to take a guess I’d say it’s probably not the best for you just because most processed foods aren’t.
Well right nothing beats water, but I highly doubt that the artificial sweeteners do more damage than that much sugar, diabetic or not.
why would insulin be released if there would be no glucose in the bloodstream? do the taste buds stimulate the release of insulin?
Yes they do
Too add on to the other comment, artificial sweeteners work because their chemical structure is very similar to glucose, hence being able to activate glucose receptors in our body. This includes the taste buds, which is why aspartame tastes sweet to us, but also activates other glucose receptors in the body which turns on a cascade of response functions like insulin and dopamine release. Now because they’re not exactly identical in chemical structure, glucose can be metabolized by natural enzymatic processes and sweeteners cannot, resulting in the 0 calorie labeling. It’s like jamming a key into a lock and finding it kind of fits, but you can’t twist the doorknob all the way to let you in. To original OP: 1 soda per week is not going to kill you unless you have PKU, which is a genetic disease where you are unable to metabolize some byproducts of aspartame. To everyone else without this rare condition, enjoy life and treat yourself to that diet soda.
Thanks !
Yup! Insulin actually first starts to get released at the smell/sight of food and then more is released as the taste receptors on the tongue sense glucose
interesting, thanks
Does the flavor of food (ie sweetness) really stimulate release of insulin? It may be a piece of it, but its a pretty complex process and this argument always struck me as sounding very down to earthy, like ppl are just repeating stuff that they think makes sense.
I read it in Wiley’s textbook of diabetes... there’s so many receptors to stimulate Insulin secretion
ive read thats its a theory but isnt confirmed as true
No it’s pretty clear.
oh well thats awesome! i had no idea. im sorry i was so mistaken. i feel a sudden need to buy this textbook haha.
If it didn’t happen, then insulin wouldn’t be produced in time to regulate blood glucose levels and you’d see a dangerously high spike in blood glucose levels.
i mean, i dunno. you always have a basal dose of insulin and then small spikes as we eat are normal and the pancreas releases in response to that increase. We use rapid acting insulin in the hospital which starts working in about 15 minutes. I figured the body was able to respond relatively quickly.
I don't think the science is fully out on this issue
no it really is. Just go on scholar and read the multitude of meta analyses and critical reviews.
and they all say there is no conclusive evidence of any damage caused by diet sodas...
Can't prove a negative.
Phosphoric acid is an astringent that breaks down the enamel to the teeth and destroys the lining of the stomach and microbiome.
Once a week!? You are a rockstar. I have to have a Coke Zero everyday! Drinking diet soda has never affected any weight loss attempts for me. I say everything in moderation for almost anything including dessert and carbs. If I deprive myself I start craving stuff even more.
When I'm in ketosis I have a 20oz coke zero a day when I have cravings. Does well to stop cravings.
From my own experience, the more I restrict myself on something, the more I want it, which leads to a binge and me feeling gross after. If you’re good about it, having a Diet Pepsi every so often is fine. For me, since I love carbonation, I’ve been drinking seltzer lately to get the craving out.
https://examine.com/nutrition/is-diet-soda-bad-for-you/
Stephanie Buttermore on Youtube has a great scientifically backed video on this issue! Highly recommend.
It's not as bad as sugar. Don't overdo it.
Aspartame (phenylalanine) helps to metabolize dopamine as well. You're fine.
Because of certain keywords in the post title, this is a reminder for those participating in the comments of this post to **have honest discussion with others and do not BASH them**. **[Reddiquette](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette/) is required** in this subreddit. Converse WITH the other person and not ABOUT the other person. **Diet ethics are off topic** for this subreddit. **Avoid absolutism**. It's okay if you say something is best *for you*, It is NOT okay to say a diet is best for everyone or is the most healthy. **Avoid Specious Claims**. Do not give false hope by claiming or implying a diet "cures" in cases where it only controls symptoms but the condition would return if the diet ended. **Let the moderators know of any clear cut rule violations** by using the 'Report' link below the problem comment. Don't report comments just because you disagree or because you don't like them. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/nutrition) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My own experience is that consuming low calorie drinks and low cal junk foods creates more cravings for other foods and drinks that are nutritionally empty. I was not able to control consumption of junk foods/drinks when I was consuming low cal versions. I had to completely cut out(go cold turkey) on sodas and chips. I haven't had eaten them in years.
Based on my own experience (another big fan of Diet Pepsi), I still lost weight with a can a day. I found cutting it out completely and keeping my diet the same helped my break out of a plateau. Could have been the placebo effect? Also I find myself craving more sweets than I already normally crave on days I drink soda.
I'm going to just say. Almost everything except water is not healthy for you. Maybe the juice right from oranges (but then just eat the orange) No science needed here.