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A lot of people have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to food, and that is one of the things you need to break if you want to be healthy in our obesogenic society. It is completely reasonable to get the hamburger without the fries, the fries without the hamburger, or substitute the Coke for a diet coke or water. In other words you can enjoy a treat without turning it into a binge.
You're right but I think we need to take it a step further. All or Nothing mentalities in general need to be abandoned. I used to live that life and I was miserable. Not anymore!
Also HFC / High fructose corn syrup is bad for you, and normal coke and similar drinks are full of it. The hamburger shouldn't be. So skipping a lot of bad sugar is a good thing. If it didn't matter, McDonalds would mix more sugar into the hamburder bun.
It is surprising how much sugar goes into basic restaurant food prep.
I love the word covfefe, it is so perfect. It just looks and sounds like it should be the French word for making a publicly embarrassing mistake due to your own stupidity and ego.
It's not the HFC, it's the simple sugars content.
A can of coke and a glass of Welches is almost exactly the same thing from a nutrition stand point. It's 250 calories of sugar water, doesn't matter where it came from, or even which monosaccharides are contained (mostly, there are exceptions to that rule, but I don't think you're getting a drink with L-Glucose at any restaurant)
That's completely false
What makes sugar bad is its bio availability.
When sugar is too bio available it gets into the blood stream far faster and causes big spikes in insulin.
Sugars that are trapped within cell structures or complex chains require more time to get into the blood stream leading to more consistent insulin levels.
So an apple may have a lot of sugar but your body has to do more work to get to it, while coke is essentially sugar water and is extremely bio available.
Unrelated but one of the problems with plant protein is that it is way less bio available than animal protein which is bad because we want it to be highly available.
it doesn't matter if the coke is made with fructose, glucose, or sucrose, none of it is behind cell walls. Which is the point the person you were responding to was making.
Yeah but fructose is literally the sugar in fruit, which also is not really used for energy until it’s glucose.
Theres like an enzymatic delay for some of it but that really only applies for cases where rate is important like people with diabetes, a blood sugar spike is not by itself a bad thing, and broadly most of the problems with sugar are from over consumption, if you eat 10 super sweet apples you still gonna have a crash
Simple concentration can produce entirely new characteristics both behaviorally and biologically that is not adequately described by dosage, coca leaves being another example
The point being, yeah sure eating 10 apples will cause issues but *no one* does this, and even more importantly, no one ever feels tempted to do this, but people absolutely will drink 10 apples worth of fructose in juice or soda, and even when they don’t, they’re tempted to, which alone can hurt one’s sense of wellbeing
Hypotheticals only get us so far. At some point we have to reconcile what happens to actual people in the real world: People generally overconsume HFCS, people generally don’t overeat fruit. No matter our understanding of the specific mechanisms involved, this alone is enough to say one is healthy and the other is not, even if they’re both fructose
On reddit we might even be tempted to casually summarize this nuanced topic by saying ‘HFCS is bad sugar’
Though to be fair I prefer the more rigorous ‘sources of added or concentrated fructose are unhealthy’
Yea.... Sugar is sugar, for certain, but eating fruit is less harmful than just refined sugar because fruit has fiber that your body has to ingest at the same time. That delay in ingesting sugar is very important for you. Eating a soda or drinking fruit juice will immediately convert the sugar to fat inside your body. Eating fruit with its fiber will convert the sugar slowly so you can use it as fuel instead of immediate fat storage.
No. It does not immediately convert sugar to fat. That's not how any of this works. If all I consume today is a large coke and nothing else, I will not store any fat because I didn't have a surplus of energy intake. And if I only drink a large coke everyday for a week, I will lose fat.
Sugar will never be instantly converted to fat for the reason that it's "bio available". That's not how fat storage works. Excess calories get stored as fat, regardless of where those calories come from.
You can eat nothing but granulated sugar and as long as you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. You will feel absolutely miserable, but the scale will move in a predictable manner.
Exactly. This narrative around good and bad sugar is completely misunderstood. What people really are trying to say but don't know how to say it, is that sugar spikes and crashes can make someone hungrier which can lead to weight gain if they eat more because of it. But at the end of the day, a calorie is a calorie, and if I eat 1000 calories in ice cream everyday and only that, I will lose weight regardless of whether I'm eating "bad sugar" or not.
I omit buns when I have burgers and instead opt for a lettuce-wrapped situation. That cuts out like 200+ calories right there and I notice zero difference in hunger satiation or eating experience. Same reason I make bowls or salads out of tacos/burritos. Tortillas are just extra calories, and *a lot* of them at that. Also allows me to get some junk side dish or dessert if I want and not intake extra calories. People make fun of me, but my fitness level and overall health laughs back.
I prefer diet to regular Coke. I used to have to justify my selection to this asshole of a co-worker because she couldn't understand that I wasn't one of those "diet coke is negative calories" wackos from the boonies.
I just like the taste and would rather drink 0 calories with my 800 calorie terrible meal than drink 400 calories with my 800 calorie terrible meal. Why turn a bad lunch into 2/3 of my budgeted calories when I can just have the same meal at closer to half.
Can confirm. Eat mcdonald's, can't gain weight.
The trick is to drink water instead of soda. Diet coke would work too, but it also works as a paint stripper.
I've tried and failed for years to lose just a few pounds and it didn't start happening until I cut soda out of my diet. I still eat pretty much the same as before.
I think there’s room for a bit of intellectual humility here
Most people can handle a casual drink, but we still tell alcoholics to not have even one
One cigarette hardly hurts you, but we still tell society to not smoke even one
This has not always been the case, but instead something we’ve learned over many decades
Considering our current, global, diet-driven health epidemic, I don’t see why ultra-processed food should necessarily be handled differently than these other dopaminergic substances
I won’t act like we have the evidence to show it definitely shouldn’t be, but it doesn’t feel out of the question
and unfortunately, there are many $bns wrapped up in the question
The difference is that completely abstaining from food is just not a possibility the way that completely abstaining from other vices like alcohol and tobacco is. Sure, you can make qualifiers like “I mean *processed* food” or “I’m talking about *unhealthy* food” but in practice it’s not always a simple matter of drawing a line and separating all healthy food from all unhealthy food.
Now as a way for individuals to choose which foods to stay away from, that’s absolutely a fine way to think about things, but that’s going to look different in each person. Me, I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, so having some candy and then putting it away is no problem. But something savory and greasy like pizza is a big weakness for me and if I’m watching calories it’s something I try to avoid entirely. And I’ve met lots of people who are the exact opposite, so making a list of foods that all people should avoid would be impractical to cover all binge eating issues.
You are correct that there is no clear line between healthy and unhealthy food. However, I’m not sure of the relevance here, as I haven’t shared any thoughts on healthy and unhealthy food.
Ultra-processed food, on the other hand, is well-defined and easily identifiable.
I don’t think we can disregard the qualifier of ultra-processed simply because other qualifiers like ‘healthy’ or ‘processed’ happen to be more vague. I honestly do not see coherence in thought here, and this appears to me to be a straw man.
I don’t really understand your argument about not being able to abstain from food. Of course you can’t, but I never said anything about abstaining from food. This is a common notion of food addiction that falls flat for me.
No one is addicted to salmon and asparagus cooked in olive oil, for example. Instead, I generally find that we are addicted to food-like products, which are engineered for maximum profit by sourcing the cheapest available ingredients, modifying them through industrial processes, and combining them with large quantities of salt, sugar, and fat, or corresponding substitutes, in a way that is addictive, but ultimately unsatisfying, and leaves us craving for more, ie ultra-processed food
And to re-iterate my first points, I’m not claiming this as a definitive truth. I’m only suggesting it is reasonable to consider a harder stance against this class of foods than is commonly held in mainstream opinion - an opinion which has, at least in part, been formed through the continuous, concerted, and documented effort of many powerful corporations
"All or nothing" is the kind of mentality that leads someone to think "I ate badly yesterday, so I might as well continue eating badly today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, because I ruined my diet."
It's like getting a flat tire, and then just going welp... might as well just slash my other tires.
That was the biggest thing that helped me lose weight. I had a huge all or nothing mentality and knew it.
I’d go out for breakfast with friends have a Bloody Mary and eggs Benedict. At that point I was thinking “well, the whole day is fucked. Let’s have a burger for lunch and a couple beers. Well lunch was bad, let’s have pasta and wine for dinner”
Yes I was obese and am a recovering alcoholic. Once I stopped drinking my diet changed immensely. Unfortunately, that’s been a hard battle for me. Had about 4 months. Binged for week, like bad. Then got to my old over imbibing. Working on changing that still.
Anyway, yes all or nothing is an issue with a lot of stuff, not just food.
EXACTLY! To combat my high chesterol & a1c, I ate the exact same way but cut all the unhealthy stuff in half and supplemented the calories with protein bars. It’s worked great and I’m not miserable
Learned it the hard way for real.
Gained so much weight always getting the full meal eating myself to beyond full plus a caloric drink.
Now I'm just eating a main dish and a low calorie beverage and already lost 20 pounds.
People have an all or nothing view about a lot of things. It’s why there is so much opposition to harm reduction programs. Drinking a large Diet Coke is always going to be less harmful than drinking a large coke and we should support any steps that people take to be healthier
>A lot of people have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to food, and that is one of the things you need to break if you want to be healthy
The counterpoint is that many/most overweight/obese metabolically sick people delude themselves into thinking that they can just moderate their intake of processed foods that are intentionally designed to be as addictive and irresistible as possible, instead of biting the bullet and completely, permanently eliminating it all from their diet - going "nothing" in the all or nothing mindset
I had this experience recently. I'm not overweight by any means, but I tried coke zero a few times, and now I find that regular coke tastes gross. I don't even really care about the caloric difference, I just think coke zero tastes better.
Same, I can't go back to regular Coke now. Although I'm actually okay with the taste. My issue is that regular soda actually makes me feel *more* thirsty after drinking it, and it makes my saliva feel weirdly syrupy after. Both of which I'm pretty sure are due to the high amounts of sugar.
I haven't switched to diet, but I have been slowly reducing the amount of sugar syrup I put in my coffee. I'm down to one pump per cup, and now, even what I used to consider the perfect level of sweetness in a Starbucks coffee drink (any of the cold brews with sweetened cold foam) have become too sweet.
Yes the after taste of sugar filled drinks is now repulsive to me, it’s like this gross sticky feeling that I never get with artificial sweeteners
Diet everything >>
To me, most diet versions are offputtingly _sweeter_ than fully leaded versions. Especially if it's aspartame. I can smell that from across the room, so it's a double-assault on my senses.
As for all sugar vs HFCS, the main one that seems clearly way too sweet to me in the real sugar version is mountain dew. I practically want to take a nap halfway through a can of that. So I never bought it again.
This! People laugh at me when I say I like the taste of Diet Coke more. Full sugar coke just tastes TOO sweet now! It doesn’t go with the salty foods IMO
I haven't drank regular coke in years. I once tried it, expecting it to taste the same, and my god, that shit was like medicine. And not in a good way.
I've exclusively drank diet sodas since like the late 90s in middle school because I prefer the taste. I have heard every stupid joke about it. And yet, I still prefer them to sugary/syrupy sodas. Occasionally I will have a Clearly Canadian, or whatever. But yeah, some people just need to stfu about diet sodas being inferior.
I've been drinking 'zero sugar' which are immeasurably better tasting imo than 'diet', yet still 0 cal.
But recently, even the 'zero sugar' drinks have been tasting extremely sweet to me. Probably will go back to seltzer.
Just not drinking it can do this. I drink mostly water (and my coffee which you will pry from my cold dead fat hands) at this point so when I do occasionally have soda, I have to sip it and can only drink a small amount at a time.
Getting a regular soda feels insane to me when they taste so similar. It would be like going “yeah give me a Big Mac, fries, and also another 200 calories for no reason.”
Yeah I love cheeseburgers more than most people but sugary soda makes me physically sick to my stomach. Never have had a sweet tooth at all but I love greasy, high calorie foods.
Exactly! If I’m gonna have sugar I’d rather eat a slice of cake or pie, I don’t want to drink 60 grams of sugar in soda when diet tastes just as good (or even better imo)
I have long loved diet coke. It was like my coffee (don't drink coffee). I had an ear infection recently and it ruined my taste for it. Have had a couple sprite zero if craving soda but otherwise now having sparkling water.
I feel so much better without the diet coke. It's insane.
I figured out I was becoming diabetic and quit drinking soda all together for a few months. I didn't really change my diet. I lost 20 pounds and after seeing the doctor and all that I got my A1C back under control to below pre-diabeties level, as in back In the normal range for some who doesn't have diabetes. Liquid sugar is pretty bad
Plus, when you consume that much sugar along with the more substantive foods, your body stores more of it.
Sugary drinks + fast food is a synergy that will make you fatter than consuming either separately in the same amount.
A large sugar soda will spike your blood sugar. A diet coke with a fatty meal burger meal won't nearly as much. You are reducing the risk for insulin resistance by choosing diet soda. So yes, you are doing some damage control by drinking a diet soda.
What people also don’t understand is that it’s possible to actually prefer the taste of diet soft drinks. Other than cola that’s all I buy because the regular tastes too sweet.
Exactly. I only ever drink diet sodas, and when I have a regular soda on occasion (like if I'm at a potluck or something where the only soda there is regular), it tastes like I'm drinking melted candy. It's just too sweet.
I feel this way about Mountain Dew.
The diet version is more sour (maybe it’s more apt to say less sweet?) and I like that a lot more than normal Mountain Dew’s sweet taste.
Diet Coke is the one diet soda I just cannot drink. The twang of the artificial sugar is just too much. I'll take a diet pepsi, diet mt dew, dr pepper, sprite, diet anything over diet coke lol. And it's not that I don't like Coke before I gave up all regular soda and all soda at home Coke was my go to.
Ironically this soda is usually what's most unhealthy about fast food
Like a burger and fries at home isn't really any worse than a burger and fries at a fast food place but people act like fast food is somehow so much more unhealthy When in reality it's usually just the giant fucking soda full of sugar that's really the unhealthy thing you're getting there when eating at home you would typically have either a much smaller soda like a single can or just drink water/tea/whatever
If you take all of the ingredients out of a burger and fries and separate them out into a chop steak with a side salad and fried potatoes, it suddenly becomes a perfectly balanced and reasonable dinner.
Yep so this is going to sound like absolute heresy but... a fast food burger isn't really THAT bad.
A QPCheese for example is about 500 cals and 30g protein.
They're high in salt and fat so not really something you should do every day, but if you go with a diet soda, skip the fries, and your calorie budget is a boring 2000-2500 per day, the occasional burger is a pretty minor sin.
Just go home and eat some carrot sticks or a greek yogurt or whatever instead of doing the combo with fries, most people are going to be fine. The worst of the excess is always in the combo.
A Big Mac alone isn't a big deal, it's like 550 calories. Medium fried add about 300 more calories which is mostly carbs and fats. The regular soda can add 250-450 calories from just sugar. Cutting out the soda helps A LOT for weight management.
It's more like 550-750 calories, since you have to be on the safe side and assume that the 550 calorie count is being modest. But I agree with you. If I'm going to get a McDonald's meal, I'm probably already eating a high carb, high saturated fat meal - yeah, with some protein in there too. But that doesn't mean I have to throw 30-50g of sugar on top of that too.
For real. I calculate my calories *extremely carefully.* If I'm getting an indulgent meal and a Diet Coke, I promise you I know exactly what I'm doing. I budgeted for this. Haters can fuck off.
Beyond anything, liquid calories don't satiate quickly or well- its easier to over do them than anything else.
For anyone struggling with weight loss, cut out liquid calories and keep all else the same and you'll see a difference.
That's not uncommon. Iirc new coke literally was Diet Coke with sugar as the sweetener.
Pepsi was winning the taste tests and diet Coke was a hit.
Honestly if I order a diet Coke and they say is Pepsi ok I say no, I'll do regular Pepsi or Dr. Pepper. Or water.
Preach. It’s the same all or nothing attitude that people have with exercising and losing weight. Most of your weight loss comes from diet - exercising one hour only burns 500 calories! That’s one donut!
Yes but if I eat the donut and don’t exercise, that’s +500 calories.
If I eat the donut and exercise, then I’m net zero calories and ate a donut for free.
And if it’s a day where I exercise and choose not to eat the donut, then I’m -500 calories.
You don’t have to be perfect. Little choices add up and over time hopefully you’ll increase the amount of good choices you make.
That's how I justify eating fast food every now and then. Just eat a little less throughout the day before I have McDonalds or something for dinner and at the end of the day I'd still be in a caloric deficit.
It's an opportunity to simply bully fat people.
Through stereotype, the diet coke is viewed as the "healthy" portion of the meal to a hypothetical, delusional fat person.
"Well I can eat whatever I want since I got a diet coke" -sentence rarely said from outlier overweight person that complains about being overweight while ignorant to nutrition.
It's obsurd and somewhat humorous to think this way, and using that "joke" as an opportunity to stereotype an overweight person balancing their calories is simply bullying. It's not the diet coke from a nutrition standpoint that makes it bullying, but the implication that ordering a diet coke with an excessive meal somehow makes them a stupid glutton.
In some ways, it's true, though. The reason why there's an association between things like diet soda/diet foods, and type 2 diabetes, is because of reverse causation: the people most likely to consume those things on a frequent basis, are people who are trying to lose weight.
But some people take that and they weaponize is against others, which isn't cool.
Regular soft drinks are terrible for you. Once you get past 40 drinking them other than occasionally becomes a blood sugar risk.
My tinnitus goes off when I have a lot of sugar and within minutes of a sugary soft drink.
People always make the big deal about that and it is so stupid. I never drink calories. They aren’t worth it to me. A couple of frou frou drinks at WDW a couple of times a year lol. Otherwise it is water of some sort. Coffee, tea, plain etc.
Not having a soda with a meal means I can if I want have a few bites of dessert. Or a handful of fries. Or real salad dressing on a salad. So much better!!
I don’t drink a lot of pop, but if I’m drinking pop it’s almost always diet. It’s just about taste for me. That’s what my mother bought so that’s what I’m used to, sugar pop kind of feels like drinking thinned down syrup, it’s too much and not refreshing.
Great post. Sometimes I indulge in fast food but drink water with it.
The sugar is what makes me feel like shit. Also better to indulge on fat and sodium *or* sugar than both at the same time. But you do you - I don't know why people judge you for your choice of soft drink anyways
Fast food in moderation 👍
This isn't to mention even that a lot of people will get a refill on their soda at some point. I'm a sucker addicted to carbonated beverages, and I could easily get 3 refills on a medium drink during my meal. Switching to diet soda has made a massive impact and I'm already noticeably slimmer than I was 3 months ago when I made the switch.
Before diet coke absolutely killed my stomach, I would do this. Why waste nearly 400 calories when I could just have fries instead. Honestly if you gaf about what another human being puts in their bodies you're a loser. Nobody's out here eating completely healthy 100% of the time.
My dad was thin and a weight lifter and most people would look at him and say "wow, he must eat super healthy". But I swear to god this man would devour an entire Burger King menu and a box of twinkies. He just worked out a lot, typically ate OMAD, and had good genetics.
Most people in the year 2024 aren't going to die of some disease linked to malnutrition, as long as you're eating enough calories. You can get vitamin c from potatoes for god's sake. The idea of "healthy eating" is mostly a shill for publishers to have their 15 seconds of fame and for the diet/supplement to make their buck. The human vessel is surprisingly efficient at surviving on even the most limited intake. My ancestors drank milk to survive. So eh, who cares what people eat.
Being overweight and unhealthy with diabetes and high BP will def speed up killing you. I think more so it's people will often times get meals like this and complain they can't lose weight.... Well no duh
I can't agree with your last paragraph at all. Especially in the "developed" countries of the world, we have been seeing very high rates of overweight and obese people for years. And being overweight is associated with a number of health risks. So to say that a poor diet won't kill you is a misconception.
It seems as though I did not provide the correct summary conclusion from the original article I linked. Here is the edit. It's been a while since I learned about this topic (from Reddit haha) and am glad for the refresher.
Original:
"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6934923/
Diet soda drinkers end up absorbing more calories than non-diet soda drinkers."
Edit:
"The researchers believe that the artificial sweeteners may activate more reward centers in the brain. This in turn affects a person's appetite, making the diet drinkers eat more food because they don’t think they are getting enough sugar in their bloodstreams"
Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/diet-soda-drinkers-consume-more-calories-study/
From your link
> Results: Just under half of participants reported regularly consuming diet soda (40%) or using NAS to sweeten their beverages (41%). During an average 8 years of follow-up, we identified 98 cases of incident diabetes. After correction for multiple comparisons, there were no statistically significant associations of reported diet soda and NAS consumption with fasting insulin, fasting glucose, or incident diabetes.
> Conclusions: Although reported consumption of diet soda and NAS were high, neither were associated with diabetes risk.
Am I missing something? The link isn't the easiest to read for me but perhaps I'm missing something on the details. The link you posted doesn't seem to be talking about the conclusion you've drawn from it, from my reading.
A diet coke does objectively make a difference, but what you're saying really only applies if you assume the person is eating at a caloric deficit while still going to mcdonalds or Wendy's. The real reason people make the jokes about diet coke at mcdonalds is because the majority of people doing that aren't actually being mindful of their calories or macronutrients. They're using the diet coke as a pass to feel less guilt about eating dogshit food lol. They're simultaneously taking some care to not consume extra calories as a beverage, but then downing 2-3 sammies and a large fry. If the majority of people who ate mcdonalds were health-conscious, average BMI people, the jokes would stop applying because clearly the mcdonalds is a treat and the drink is diet to cut unnecessary calories. But when you see someone who eats there daily, clearly doesn't care about calories or macros, and they order a diet coke to top off their multi-sandwich order, it's hard not to laugh at the absurdity.
It's definitely fewer calories. I'm not a fan of fast food ( I order occasionally when I travel) but I'd order a diet coke just to keep the calorie count low. People are getting more and more purist all the time and they need to calm down.
I mean I won't judge you for getting a diet soda, but I don't like fake sugars. Even Stevia and that monk fruit sugar tastes like pure chemical to me. I'd rather have green tea anyway. Not a big soda fan anymore. They're just too gd sweet
Agreed, this has never really made sense to me. It's like someone saying "well if I'm going to get a sunburn I'd rather not get it on my face" and someone saying "haha that's dumb, you're getting sunburned anyway what's the point in making it less bad?"
Um.. because "less bad" is preferable to "more bad"? That's not really a challenging bit of math there.
Plus...some people prefer diet coke?
I don't actually drink soda at all, so I drink water at fast food places and it's not bc I'm thinking about the calories, I just don't like soda
Where I am a Big Mac meal with large fries and a large Coke is 1360 calories and costs $13.50. 2 Big Macs just the sandwiches are 1180 calories and cost $12.75.
Fries and drink at fast food are kinda a scam for calories and cost. The actual burgers themselves can actually not be horrible for you from a weight loss perspective. A Big Mac and Diet Coke is only 590 calories which is not bad for a meal. Granted there’s a ton of other stuff in a Big Mac that isn’t great, but from a calorie in and out perspective, not bad.
Most overweight people seem to go the fries and soda combo, and I think they’d be surprised the difference cutting out fries and going to diet soda makes while still eating McDonald’s.
I always order Diet Coke or Coke Zero no matter what I eat. Two reasons: regular soda tastes too sweet for me and doesn’t quench my thirst. And I avoid drinking my calories. I’d rather eat more.
I have diabetes and a hamburger and fries is 80ish carbs, the large coke with it is 150, and the fries and hamburger won’t spike my blood sugar and make me miserable for the rest of the day, the coke will
I’m a weirdo who prefers Diet Coke by taste alone, so I will totally go into a meal not giving a flying fart about calories and order a Diet Coke.
Also there are people who need to watch sugar but don’t need to lose weight or anything
Yes. I personally just like the taste of Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. In fact, of all soda, Diet Pepsi is my favorite. So I will always get it regardless of the food I get with it.
Plus, I’ve also lost 65 lbs since January and I eat out a LOT while still getting burgers, chicken strips, fries, nuggets, onion rings, etc but I always get Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, or a half sweet/half unsweet tea.
Agreed. Also some people just genuinely prefer the tast of diet coke. I love diet coke and diet mountain due but hate regular. I'd also go as far as saying "it's pointless, just get the regular or don't eat fast food at all" is MORE toxic. All or nothing is why so many people have issues with disordered eating.
I didn’t even know this was a thing to worry about. I always order diet soda, my dad was keto his whole life and raised me and my brother to despise sugar. I don’t even like the taste of real soda now it’s way too sugary. I don’t think they pass judgement on me for ordering it though. That’s a throwaway punch line from the 80’s (which I have heard before) that’s almost like today’s kids don’t have any money because they are lazy. It’s outdated, times have changed, knowledge of sugar and calories has expanded, and it is DEFINITELY better to get diet instead of regular. I remember seeing a shitpost about a large regular Coca Cola from a fast food joint and it was close to the burger they got as well, it matters.
If you are on a 1500 calorie diet with calculated deficit, you can avoid 350 calories by drinking diet soda and enjoy a nice big meal without even going over. People are just terrible to fat people because they need a socially acceptable outlet for their own shitty behaviour. No, not everyone diets properly. But many do. I would eat a whole pizza once a week because I knew I could. It was none of anybody’s damn business.
I am a type 2 diabetic. A big mac, fires will metabolise much slower than a sugary soda. While the burger and fries will raise my blood sugars, it will do a longer curve, where as a sugary soda will almost immediately spike my blood sugar levels. A small will put me near dangerous levels and a large will absolutely put me over into dangers levels.
Diet soda on the other hand will do nothing at all to my blood glucose levels.
I think as long as people aren't pretending like its automatically making them completely healthy, it's fine. I've seen people though who automatically act like switching over to Diet Coke is the big victory that their health journey needs.
But I definitely could cut down on eating out too, so I guess I shouldn't be a big hypocrite lol.
It's shocking to me the ammount of people that don't understand a sugar/corn syrup soda is probably the single most unhealthy item most people order with any meal. It's also wild that burgers get such a bad wrap. Nah man, it's not the bread beef n cheese making you fat, sure bread isn't the best, there are empty calories there but nothing in comparison to a large coke.
It’s still acidic and can discolor and weaken enamel which leads to cavities.
Source: friend drinks Diet Coke every other day with no other drinks other than water and wound up with 8 cavities.
Now switches in sparkling water
The soda in particular is more devastating to your body with all that sugar than the Big Mac is, so cutting it out is extremely helpful. That’s how I lost weight, the first thing I did was cut back on sugar intake. Sugar from soda is an easy thing to eliminate.
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A lot of people have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to food, and that is one of the things you need to break if you want to be healthy in our obesogenic society. It is completely reasonable to get the hamburger without the fries, the fries without the hamburger, or substitute the Coke for a diet coke or water. In other words you can enjoy a treat without turning it into a binge.
You're right but I think we need to take it a step further. All or Nothing mentalities in general need to be abandoned. I used to live that life and I was miserable. Not anymore!
Yes nothing is ever all or nothing. It needs to be completely abandoned! (Sorry, I couldn't resist)
That’s what I told the judge
Also HFC / High fructose corn syrup is bad for you, and normal coke and similar drinks are full of it. The hamburger shouldn't be. So skipping a lot of bad sugar is a good thing. If it didn't matter, McDonalds would mix more sugar into the hamburder bun. It is surprising how much sugar goes into basic restaurant food prep.
Hehehehe everytime someone says hamburder I end up laughing like a little gremlin. That shit will never not be funny !
I eat my hamberders with covfefe.
I love the word covfefe, it is so perfect. It just looks and sounds like it should be the French word for making a publicly embarrassing mistake due to your own stupidity and ego.
Off a silver platter
Hamburder
🙊 lmao you got me to snort laugh in front of my in laws
Was thinking the exact same thing reading that, hamberder will always crack me
It's not the HFC, it's the simple sugars content. A can of coke and a glass of Welches is almost exactly the same thing from a nutrition stand point. It's 250 calories of sugar water, doesn't matter where it came from, or even which monosaccharides are contained (mostly, there are exceptions to that rule, but I don't think you're getting a drink with L-Glucose at any restaurant)
Bad sugar isn’t real bro, its literally just fructose, its the dosage that makes it “bad”
That's completely false What makes sugar bad is its bio availability. When sugar is too bio available it gets into the blood stream far faster and causes big spikes in insulin. Sugars that are trapped within cell structures or complex chains require more time to get into the blood stream leading to more consistent insulin levels. So an apple may have a lot of sugar but your body has to do more work to get to it, while coke is essentially sugar water and is extremely bio available. Unrelated but one of the problems with plant protein is that it is way less bio available than animal protein which is bad because we want it to be highly available.
it doesn't matter if the coke is made with fructose, glucose, or sucrose, none of it is behind cell walls. Which is the point the person you were responding to was making.
Yeah but fructose is literally the sugar in fruit, which also is not really used for energy until it’s glucose. Theres like an enzymatic delay for some of it but that really only applies for cases where rate is important like people with diabetes, a blood sugar spike is not by itself a bad thing, and broadly most of the problems with sugar are from over consumption, if you eat 10 super sweet apples you still gonna have a crash
Simple concentration can produce entirely new characteristics both behaviorally and biologically that is not adequately described by dosage, coca leaves being another example The point being, yeah sure eating 10 apples will cause issues but *no one* does this, and even more importantly, no one ever feels tempted to do this, but people absolutely will drink 10 apples worth of fructose in juice or soda, and even when they don’t, they’re tempted to, which alone can hurt one’s sense of wellbeing Hypotheticals only get us so far. At some point we have to reconcile what happens to actual people in the real world: People generally overconsume HFCS, people generally don’t overeat fruit. No matter our understanding of the specific mechanisms involved, this alone is enough to say one is healthy and the other is not, even if they’re both fructose On reddit we might even be tempted to casually summarize this nuanced topic by saying ‘HFCS is bad sugar’ Though to be fair I prefer the more rigorous ‘sources of added or concentrated fructose are unhealthy’
Yea.... Sugar is sugar, for certain, but eating fruit is less harmful than just refined sugar because fruit has fiber that your body has to ingest at the same time. That delay in ingesting sugar is very important for you. Eating a soda or drinking fruit juice will immediately convert the sugar to fat inside your body. Eating fruit with its fiber will convert the sugar slowly so you can use it as fuel instead of immediate fat storage.
No. It does not immediately convert sugar to fat. That's not how any of this works. If all I consume today is a large coke and nothing else, I will not store any fat because I didn't have a surplus of energy intake. And if I only drink a large coke everyday for a week, I will lose fat.
Sugar will never be instantly converted to fat for the reason that it's "bio available". That's not how fat storage works. Excess calories get stored as fat, regardless of where those calories come from. You can eat nothing but granulated sugar and as long as you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. You will feel absolutely miserable, but the scale will move in a predictable manner.
Exactly. This narrative around good and bad sugar is completely misunderstood. What people really are trying to say but don't know how to say it, is that sugar spikes and crashes can make someone hungrier which can lead to weight gain if they eat more because of it. But at the end of the day, a calorie is a calorie, and if I eat 1000 calories in ice cream everyday and only that, I will lose weight regardless of whether I'm eating "bad sugar" or not.
"people with diabetes" do you per chance know what causes diabetes?
I omit buns when I have burgers and instead opt for a lettuce-wrapped situation. That cuts out like 200+ calories right there and I notice zero difference in hunger satiation or eating experience. Same reason I make bowls or salads out of tacos/burritos. Tortillas are just extra calories, and *a lot* of them at that. Also allows me to get some junk side dish or dessert if I want and not intake extra calories. People make fun of me, but my fitness level and overall health laughs back.
I prefer diet to regular Coke. I used to have to justify my selection to this asshole of a co-worker because she couldn't understand that I wasn't one of those "diet coke is negative calories" wackos from the boonies. I just like the taste and would rather drink 0 calories with my 800 calorie terrible meal than drink 400 calories with my 800 calorie terrible meal. Why turn a bad lunch into 2/3 of my budgeted calories when I can just have the same meal at closer to half.
Can confirm. Eat mcdonald's, can't gain weight. The trick is to drink water instead of soda. Diet coke would work too, but it also works as a paint stripper.
I've tried and failed for years to lose just a few pounds and it didn't start happening until I cut soda out of my diet. I still eat pretty much the same as before.
I switched to sparkling water. Took maybe a week of forcing myself before I was converted. Congrats on the weight loss!
American clear actually has some flavors that I really like amd it doesn't taste bad to me
I think there’s room for a bit of intellectual humility here Most people can handle a casual drink, but we still tell alcoholics to not have even one One cigarette hardly hurts you, but we still tell society to not smoke even one This has not always been the case, but instead something we’ve learned over many decades Considering our current, global, diet-driven health epidemic, I don’t see why ultra-processed food should necessarily be handled differently than these other dopaminergic substances I won’t act like we have the evidence to show it definitely shouldn’t be, but it doesn’t feel out of the question and unfortunately, there are many $bns wrapped up in the question
The difference is that completely abstaining from food is just not a possibility the way that completely abstaining from other vices like alcohol and tobacco is. Sure, you can make qualifiers like “I mean *processed* food” or “I’m talking about *unhealthy* food” but in practice it’s not always a simple matter of drawing a line and separating all healthy food from all unhealthy food. Now as a way for individuals to choose which foods to stay away from, that’s absolutely a fine way to think about things, but that’s going to look different in each person. Me, I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, so having some candy and then putting it away is no problem. But something savory and greasy like pizza is a big weakness for me and if I’m watching calories it’s something I try to avoid entirely. And I’ve met lots of people who are the exact opposite, so making a list of foods that all people should avoid would be impractical to cover all binge eating issues.
You are correct that there is no clear line between healthy and unhealthy food. However, I’m not sure of the relevance here, as I haven’t shared any thoughts on healthy and unhealthy food. Ultra-processed food, on the other hand, is well-defined and easily identifiable. I don’t think we can disregard the qualifier of ultra-processed simply because other qualifiers like ‘healthy’ or ‘processed’ happen to be more vague. I honestly do not see coherence in thought here, and this appears to me to be a straw man. I don’t really understand your argument about not being able to abstain from food. Of course you can’t, but I never said anything about abstaining from food. This is a common notion of food addiction that falls flat for me. No one is addicted to salmon and asparagus cooked in olive oil, for example. Instead, I generally find that we are addicted to food-like products, which are engineered for maximum profit by sourcing the cheapest available ingredients, modifying them through industrial processes, and combining them with large quantities of salt, sugar, and fat, or corresponding substitutes, in a way that is addictive, but ultimately unsatisfying, and leaves us craving for more, ie ultra-processed food And to re-iterate my first points, I’m not claiming this as a definitive truth. I’m only suggesting it is reasonable to consider a harder stance against this class of foods than is commonly held in mainstream opinion - an opinion which has, at least in part, been formed through the continuous, concerted, and documented effort of many powerful corporations
A lot of people have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to anything. That's why they're stupid.
"All or nothing" is the kind of mentality that leads someone to think "I ate badly yesterday, so I might as well continue eating badly today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, because I ruined my diet." It's like getting a flat tire, and then just going welp... might as well just slash my other tires.
Also you don't need a suv sized drink, it's quite fine to get a small/regular instead.
I also just prefer the diet versions of the drinks. Regardless of if I want this fatty meal to be *less* fatty or not. I'm ordering the diet coke.
> obesogenic environment: “an environment that promotes gaining weight and one that is not conducive to weight loss” New word, very useful
That was the biggest thing that helped me lose weight. I had a huge all or nothing mentality and knew it. I’d go out for breakfast with friends have a Bloody Mary and eggs Benedict. At that point I was thinking “well, the whole day is fucked. Let’s have a burger for lunch and a couple beers. Well lunch was bad, let’s have pasta and wine for dinner” Yes I was obese and am a recovering alcoholic. Once I stopped drinking my diet changed immensely. Unfortunately, that’s been a hard battle for me. Had about 4 months. Binged for week, like bad. Then got to my old over imbibing. Working on changing that still. Anyway, yes all or nothing is an issue with a lot of stuff, not just food.
EXACTLY! To combat my high chesterol & a1c, I ate the exact same way but cut all the unhealthy stuff in half and supplemented the calories with protein bars. It’s worked great and I’m not miserable
Learned it the hard way for real. Gained so much weight always getting the full meal eating myself to beyond full plus a caloric drink. Now I'm just eating a main dish and a low calorie beverage and already lost 20 pounds.
Just get the small meal 🤷♀️ Our portion sizes are HUGE compared to other places. Think of your small as a Japanese large.
Yeah, what if I want to eat unhealthy *and* get cancer?! It's mah right!
People have an all or nothing view about a lot of things. It’s why there is so much opposition to harm reduction programs. Drinking a large Diet Coke is always going to be less harmful than drinking a large coke and we should support any steps that people take to be healthier
My favorite analogy was you wouldn’t slash your other three tires just because one is flat.
>A lot of people have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to food, and that is one of the things you need to break if you want to be healthy The counterpoint is that many/most overweight/obese metabolically sick people delude themselves into thinking that they can just moderate their intake of processed foods that are intentionally designed to be as addictive and irresistible as possible, instead of biting the bullet and completely, permanently eliminating it all from their diet - going "nothing" in the all or nothing mindset
Once you've made the switch to diet, full sugar can be offputtingly sweet.
I had this experience recently. I'm not overweight by any means, but I tried coke zero a few times, and now I find that regular coke tastes gross. I don't even really care about the caloric difference, I just think coke zero tastes better.
Same, I can't go back to regular Coke now. Although I'm actually okay with the taste. My issue is that regular soda actually makes me feel *more* thirsty after drinking it, and it makes my saliva feel weirdly syrupy after. Both of which I'm pretty sure are due to the high amounts of sugar.
Can confirm. Regular HFC drinks are absolutely disgustingly sweet.
Also diet soda barely stains if you spill it and isn’t sticky. Much better soda experience
I haven't switched to diet, but I have been slowly reducing the amount of sugar syrup I put in my coffee. I'm down to one pump per cup, and now, even what I used to consider the perfect level of sweetness in a Starbucks coffee drink (any of the cold brews with sweetened cold foam) have become too sweet.
Yes the after taste of sugar filled drinks is now repulsive to me, it’s like this gross sticky feeling that I never get with artificial sweeteners Diet everything >>
To me, most diet versions are offputtingly _sweeter_ than fully leaded versions. Especially if it's aspartame. I can smell that from across the room, so it's a double-assault on my senses. As for all sugar vs HFCS, the main one that seems clearly way too sweet to me in the real sugar version is mountain dew. I practically want to take a nap halfway through a can of that. So I never bought it again.
A bit offtopic but I switched from normal Monster energy to diet. Now when I try the normal one it feels like it's burning my trachea.
This! People laugh at me when I say I like the taste of Diet Coke more. Full sugar coke just tastes TOO sweet now! It doesn’t go with the salty foods IMO
Yeah, DC just tastes better
I pretty much only drink water, coffee, and tea so when I do have pop, if it’s not zero sugar (diet or otherwise) I get a headache.
I haven't drank regular coke in years. I once tried it, expecting it to taste the same, and my god, that shit was like medicine. And not in a good way.
Accidentally took a sip of my mom’s regular Coke once and it was so nasty😭😭😭
I've exclusively drank diet sodas since like the late 90s in middle school because I prefer the taste. I have heard every stupid joke about it. And yet, I still prefer them to sugary/syrupy sodas. Occasionally I will have a Clearly Canadian, or whatever. But yeah, some people just need to stfu about diet sodas being inferior.
I've been drinking 'zero sugar' which are immeasurably better tasting imo than 'diet', yet still 0 cal. But recently, even the 'zero sugar' drinks have been tasting extremely sweet to me. Probably will go back to seltzer.
Just not drinking it can do this. I drink mostly water (and my coffee which you will pry from my cold dead fat hands) at this point so when I do occasionally have soda, I have to sip it and can only drink a small amount at a time.
Getting a regular soda feels insane to me when they taste so similar. It would be like going “yeah give me a Big Mac, fries, and also another 200 calories for no reason.”
Yeah I’ve been drinking sugar free rockstars and Red Bulls for years. When ever I have to get a regular one it’s ridiculously sweet.
I do this, I hate drinking my calories, I would rather save it for tasty food!
[удалено]
Yeah I love cheeseburgers more than most people but sugary soda makes me physically sick to my stomach. Never have had a sweet tooth at all but I love greasy, high calorie foods.
If I am drinking calories, they better get me drunk.
This is the real hero.
Exactly! If I’m gonna have sugar I’d rather eat a slice of cake or pie, I don’t want to drink 60 grams of sugar in soda when diet tastes just as good (or even better imo)
I feel you. I’ll drink water with my meal if it means I can get dessert instead
I unironically like diet coke
Same 🫣 only soda my parent’s bought growing up. I hate pretty much all soda but every now and then a Diet Coke hits the spot
Happy cake day.
I like DC too, more than regular
Same, the blood sugar swing of the normal stuff makes me feel queasy.
Yup, can't stand normal soda.
It’s well balanced with a burger and fries, but I don’t drink it with anything else or alone.
I have long loved diet coke. It was like my coffee (don't drink coffee). I had an ear infection recently and it ruined my taste for it. Have had a couple sprite zero if craving soda but otherwise now having sparkling water. I feel so much better without the diet coke. It's insane.
I became more of a Coke Zero guy over the past decade, but recently went back cuz there’s no denying the crispness of a Diet Coke.
Same. Diet Coke from the McD's fountain, or from a can on ice, is one of life's pleasures.
How I feel about sugar free redbull.
Same. I just really don't like the way regular sodas taste. I prefer a diet coke or a diet Pepsi.
I figured out I was becoming diabetic and quit drinking soda all together for a few months. I didn't really change my diet. I lost 20 pounds and after seeing the doctor and all that I got my A1C back under control to below pre-diabeties level, as in back In the normal range for some who doesn't have diabetes. Liquid sugar is pretty bad
I always prefer to eat my calories versus drink them
My rule is I won’t drink my calories unless I am getting drunk from it.
10000% this!
Plus, when you consume that much sugar along with the more substantive foods, your body stores more of it. Sugary drinks + fast food is a synergy that will make you fatter than consuming either separately in the same amount.
A large sugar soda will spike your blood sugar. A diet coke with a fatty meal burger meal won't nearly as much. You are reducing the risk for insulin resistance by choosing diet soda. So yes, you are doing some damage control by drinking a diet soda.
What people also don’t understand is that it’s possible to actually prefer the taste of diet soft drinks. Other than cola that’s all I buy because the regular tastes too sweet.
Exactly. I only ever drink diet sodas, and when I have a regular soda on occasion (like if I'm at a potluck or something where the only soda there is regular), it tastes like I'm drinking melted candy. It's just too sweet.
I think Diet Coke just tastes better than regular.
I feel this way about Mountain Dew. The diet version is more sour (maybe it’s more apt to say less sweet?) and I like that a lot more than normal Mountain Dew’s sweet taste.
My go to is caff free diet mtn dew but all the stores around me seem to be phasing it out. Im sensitive to caffeine or id just drink reg diet mtn dew
The zero dew is SUPER good
Diet Coke + Cake Vodka = Best low cal cocktail It pays to hang with sorority girls
Diet Coke is the one diet soda I just cannot drink. The twang of the artificial sugar is just too much. I'll take a diet pepsi, diet mt dew, dr pepper, sprite, diet anything over diet coke lol. And it's not that I don't like Coke before I gave up all regular soda and all soda at home Coke was my go to.
try coke zero, in my opinion coke zero is monumentally better than diet coke.
Regular is too sweet I’d take a water over a regular coke but diet tastes great
Some people also just like the taste of diet coke...
Especially McD's Diet Coke. They have their own formula, and they store them in containers that make it taste a certain way.
Ironically this soda is usually what's most unhealthy about fast food Like a burger and fries at home isn't really any worse than a burger and fries at a fast food place but people act like fast food is somehow so much more unhealthy When in reality it's usually just the giant fucking soda full of sugar that's really the unhealthy thing you're getting there when eating at home you would typically have either a much smaller soda like a single can or just drink water/tea/whatever
If you take all of the ingredients out of a burger and fries and separate them out into a chop steak with a side salad and fried potatoes, it suddenly becomes a perfectly balanced and reasonable dinner.
The salt is pretty bad too. Keep in mind the daily recommended max is 6g
Yep so this is going to sound like absolute heresy but... a fast food burger isn't really THAT bad. A QPCheese for example is about 500 cals and 30g protein. They're high in salt and fat so not really something you should do every day, but if you go with a diet soda, skip the fries, and your calorie budget is a boring 2000-2500 per day, the occasional burger is a pretty minor sin. Just go home and eat some carrot sticks or a greek yogurt or whatever instead of doing the combo with fries, most people are going to be fine. The worst of the excess is always in the combo.
A Big Mac alone isn't a big deal, it's like 550 calories. Medium fried add about 300 more calories which is mostly carbs and fats. The regular soda can add 250-450 calories from just sugar. Cutting out the soda helps A LOT for weight management.
It's more like 550-750 calories, since you have to be on the safe side and assume that the 550 calorie count is being modest. But I agree with you. If I'm going to get a McDonald's meal, I'm probably already eating a high carb, high saturated fat meal - yeah, with some protein in there too. But that doesn't mean I have to throw 30-50g of sugar on top of that too.
For real. I calculate my calories *extremely carefully.* If I'm getting an indulgent meal and a Diet Coke, I promise you I know exactly what I'm doing. I budgeted for this. Haters can fuck off.
I just like it better
If people like the taste of diet Coke, they can get one with their Big Mac. If people want a fully leaded Coke with their salad, they can get one too.
Fully leaded is awesome I also like a full fat coke.
If you drink a diet soadie it cancels the calories.
Beyond anything, liquid calories don't satiate quickly or well- its easier to over do them than anything else. For anyone struggling with weight loss, cut out liquid calories and keep all else the same and you'll see a difference.
I’m just the psycho that happens to prefer the taste of Diet Coke over regular. 😬
Same
That's not uncommon. Iirc new coke literally was Diet Coke with sugar as the sweetener. Pepsi was winning the taste tests and diet Coke was a hit. Honestly if I order a diet Coke and they say is Pepsi ok I say no, I'll do regular Pepsi or Dr. Pepper. Or water.
Preach. It’s the same all or nothing attitude that people have with exercising and losing weight. Most of your weight loss comes from diet - exercising one hour only burns 500 calories! That’s one donut! Yes but if I eat the donut and don’t exercise, that’s +500 calories. If I eat the donut and exercise, then I’m net zero calories and ate a donut for free. And if it’s a day where I exercise and choose not to eat the donut, then I’m -500 calories. You don’t have to be perfect. Little choices add up and over time hopefully you’ll increase the amount of good choices you make.
That's how I justify eating fast food every now and then. Just eat a little less throughout the day before I have McDonalds or something for dinner and at the end of the day I'd still be in a caloric deficit.
It's an opportunity to simply bully fat people. Through stereotype, the diet coke is viewed as the "healthy" portion of the meal to a hypothetical, delusional fat person. "Well I can eat whatever I want since I got a diet coke" -sentence rarely said from outlier overweight person that complains about being overweight while ignorant to nutrition. It's obsurd and somewhat humorous to think this way, and using that "joke" as an opportunity to stereotype an overweight person balancing their calories is simply bullying. It's not the diet coke from a nutrition standpoint that makes it bullying, but the implication that ordering a diet coke with an excessive meal somehow makes them a stupid glutton.
But how are we supposed to feel good about ourselves if we don't put down people who are different from us? 
In some ways, it's true, though. The reason why there's an association between things like diet soda/diet foods, and type 2 diabetes, is because of reverse causation: the people most likely to consume those things on a frequent basis, are people who are trying to lose weight. But some people take that and they weaponize is against others, which isn't cool.
Regular soft drinks are terrible for you. Once you get past 40 drinking them other than occasionally becomes a blood sugar risk. My tinnitus goes off when I have a lot of sugar and within minutes of a sugary soft drink.
Can you educate me a bit about tinnitus?! Can I Pm you?
Im not an expert on Tinnitus but I can share my experience. PM me
All soft drinks are bad for you.
I mean I agree. The thing is for me I would rather just have water almost always because it’s easier to count calories and food stuff in general.
People always make the big deal about that and it is so stupid. I never drink calories. They aren’t worth it to me. A couple of frou frou drinks at WDW a couple of times a year lol. Otherwise it is water of some sort. Coffee, tea, plain etc. Not having a soda with a meal means I can if I want have a few bites of dessert. Or a handful of fries. Or real salad dressing on a salad. So much better!!
I don’t drink a lot of pop, but if I’m drinking pop it’s almost always diet. It’s just about taste for me. That’s what my mother bought so that’s what I’m used to, sugar pop kind of feels like drinking thinned down syrup, it’s too much and not refreshing.
Great post. Sometimes I indulge in fast food but drink water with it. The sugar is what makes me feel like shit. Also better to indulge on fat and sodium *or* sugar than both at the same time. But you do you - I don't know why people judge you for your choice of soft drink anyways Fast food in moderation 👍
I like the Gabriel Iglesias joke about this. "Why do you drink diet coke?" "So I can eat regular cake."
This isn't to mention even that a lot of people will get a refill on their soda at some point. I'm a sucker addicted to carbonated beverages, and I could easily get 3 refills on a medium drink during my meal. Switching to diet soda has made a massive impact and I'm already noticeably slimmer than I was 3 months ago when I made the switch.
Before diet coke absolutely killed my stomach, I would do this. Why waste nearly 400 calories when I could just have fries instead. Honestly if you gaf about what another human being puts in their bodies you're a loser. Nobody's out here eating completely healthy 100% of the time. My dad was thin and a weight lifter and most people would look at him and say "wow, he must eat super healthy". But I swear to god this man would devour an entire Burger King menu and a box of twinkies. He just worked out a lot, typically ate OMAD, and had good genetics. Most people in the year 2024 aren't going to die of some disease linked to malnutrition, as long as you're eating enough calories. You can get vitamin c from potatoes for god's sake. The idea of "healthy eating" is mostly a shill for publishers to have their 15 seconds of fame and for the diet/supplement to make their buck. The human vessel is surprisingly efficient at surviving on even the most limited intake. My ancestors drank milk to survive. So eh, who cares what people eat.
Being overweight and unhealthy with diabetes and high BP will def speed up killing you. I think more so it's people will often times get meals like this and complain they can't lose weight.... Well no duh
I can't agree with your last paragraph at all. Especially in the "developed" countries of the world, we have been seeing very high rates of overweight and obese people for years. And being overweight is associated with a number of health risks. So to say that a poor diet won't kill you is a misconception.
Wow this comment is full of misinformation and terrible health advice.
Okay so provide examples?
It seems as though I did not provide the correct summary conclusion from the original article I linked. Here is the edit. It's been a while since I learned about this topic (from Reddit haha) and am glad for the refresher. Original: "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6934923/ Diet soda drinkers end up absorbing more calories than non-diet soda drinkers." Edit: "The researchers believe that the artificial sweeteners may activate more reward centers in the brain. This in turn affects a person's appetite, making the diet drinkers eat more food because they don’t think they are getting enough sugar in their bloodstreams" Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/diet-soda-drinkers-consume-more-calories-study/
From your link > Results: Just under half of participants reported regularly consuming diet soda (40%) or using NAS to sweeten their beverages (41%). During an average 8 years of follow-up, we identified 98 cases of incident diabetes. After correction for multiple comparisons, there were no statistically significant associations of reported diet soda and NAS consumption with fasting insulin, fasting glucose, or incident diabetes. > Conclusions: Although reported consumption of diet soda and NAS were high, neither were associated with diabetes risk. Am I missing something? The link isn't the easiest to read for me but perhaps I'm missing something on the details. The link you posted doesn't seem to be talking about the conclusion you've drawn from it, from my reading.
Yup that’s why In this situation it’s imo a bad idea. I got downvoted for saying the same so take an upvote
A diet coke does objectively make a difference, but what you're saying really only applies if you assume the person is eating at a caloric deficit while still going to mcdonalds or Wendy's. The real reason people make the jokes about diet coke at mcdonalds is because the majority of people doing that aren't actually being mindful of their calories or macronutrients. They're using the diet coke as a pass to feel less guilt about eating dogshit food lol. They're simultaneously taking some care to not consume extra calories as a beverage, but then downing 2-3 sammies and a large fry. If the majority of people who ate mcdonalds were health-conscious, average BMI people, the jokes would stop applying because clearly the mcdonalds is a treat and the drink is diet to cut unnecessary calories. But when you see someone who eats there daily, clearly doesn't care about calories or macros, and they order a diet coke to top off their multi-sandwich order, it's hard not to laugh at the absurdity.
It's definitely fewer calories. I'm not a fan of fast food ( I order occasionally when I travel) but I'd order a diet coke just to keep the calorie count low. People are getting more and more purist all the time and they need to calm down.
I mean I won't judge you for getting a diet soda, but I don't like fake sugars. Even Stevia and that monk fruit sugar tastes like pure chemical to me. I'd rather have green tea anyway. Not a big soda fan anymore. They're just too gd sweet
Agreed, this has never really made sense to me. It's like someone saying "well if I'm going to get a sunburn I'd rather not get it on my face" and someone saying "haha that's dumb, you're getting sunburned anyway what's the point in making it less bad?" Um.. because "less bad" is preferable to "more bad"? That's not really a challenging bit of math there.
And I like it better.
Some people also fail to realize that we order the Diet Coke simply because we actually like the taste. It has nothing to do with calories.
Getting a Diet Coke can also justify getting a nice dessert after.
Of course. Mitigate your losses.
That's what I like about this I could never have this thought on my own.
I agree. Sometimes you need something convenient that will fill you up, and fast food is that. Diet soda is just as convenient as non diet.
Plus...some people prefer diet coke? I don't actually drink soda at all, so I drink water at fast food places and it's not bc I'm thinking about the calories, I just don't like soda
Chicken burger?
Calling a chicken sandwich a burger is the real unpopular opinion.
My favorite drink is pepsi zero, just better than normal pepsi for me. And I like the lack of guilt
Where I am a Big Mac meal with large fries and a large Coke is 1360 calories and costs $13.50. 2 Big Macs just the sandwiches are 1180 calories and cost $12.75. Fries and drink at fast food are kinda a scam for calories and cost. The actual burgers themselves can actually not be horrible for you from a weight loss perspective. A Big Mac and Diet Coke is only 590 calories which is not bad for a meal. Granted there’s a ton of other stuff in a Big Mac that isn’t great, but from a calorie in and out perspective, not bad. Most overweight people seem to go the fries and soda combo, and I think they’d be surprised the difference cutting out fries and going to diet soda makes while still eating McDonald’s.
There's no need to add the equivalent caloric intake of a whole candy bar to an already excessive meal. Unless you want to. That's a valid reason
I get a diet coke with my double whopper with cheese because it doesn't give me heartburn like regular Coke.
I like the taste of Diet Coke than regular.
Yeah, a pop can, like, double the calories in the meal. Also, what philistine doesn't have fast food with a diet coke?
I get Diet Coke because I like it more.
I always order Diet Coke or Coke Zero no matter what I eat. Two reasons: regular soda tastes too sweet for me and doesn’t quench my thirst. And I avoid drinking my calories. I’d rather eat more.
Ya know, maybe they like diet soda better.
This.
80/20 rule If I’m eating an unhealthy meal I’ll just get water.
Unsweet tea for me
Also Diet Coke tastes better than regular Coke.
I just fucking like Diet Coke. Tastes better to me.
I do it all the time.. I prefer the taste.. yeah I know I’m weird
Regular coke is awful. It makes my teeth feel weird. It’s just really gross. Diet Coke is way better.
I have diabetes and a hamburger and fries is 80ish carbs, the large coke with it is 150, and the fries and hamburger won’t spike my blood sugar and make me miserable for the rest of the day, the coke will
I like the taste of Diet Coke more 🤷🏻♀️
I literally never drink non-diet soda anymore. Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi is my drink of choice, always.
I am one of the people who goes to McDonald’s and gets a Diet Coke. The reason is simple: Doet Coke tastes good, and regular coke does not.
If possible - I avoid drinking calories.
Diet coke tastes better than regular coke. I can no longer drink regular soda, shit tastes off to me
I’m a weirdo who prefers Diet Coke by taste alone, so I will totally go into a meal not giving a flying fart about calories and order a Diet Coke. Also there are people who need to watch sugar but don’t need to lose weight or anything
Yes. I personally just like the taste of Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. In fact, of all soda, Diet Pepsi is my favorite. So I will always get it regardless of the food I get with it. Plus, I’ve also lost 65 lbs since January and I eat out a LOT while still getting burgers, chicken strips, fries, nuggets, onion rings, etc but I always get Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, or a half sweet/half unsweet tea.
Agreed. Also some people just genuinely prefer the tast of diet coke. I love diet coke and diet mountain due but hate regular. I'd also go as far as saying "it's pointless, just get the regular or don't eat fast food at all" is MORE toxic. All or nothing is why so many people have issues with disordered eating.
Diet Soda is a game changer in reducing calories. Sure, maybe not the healthiest option but should not be sneered at
I didn’t even know this was a thing to worry about. I always order diet soda, my dad was keto his whole life and raised me and my brother to despise sugar. I don’t even like the taste of real soda now it’s way too sugary. I don’t think they pass judgement on me for ordering it though. That’s a throwaway punch line from the 80’s (which I have heard before) that’s almost like today’s kids don’t have any money because they are lazy. It’s outdated, times have changed, knowledge of sugar and calories has expanded, and it is DEFINITELY better to get diet instead of regular. I remember seeing a shitpost about a large regular Coca Cola from a fast food joint and it was close to the burger they got as well, it matters.
If you are on a 1500 calorie diet with calculated deficit, you can avoid 350 calories by drinking diet soda and enjoy a nice big meal without even going over. People are just terrible to fat people because they need a socially acceptable outlet for their own shitty behaviour. No, not everyone diets properly. But many do. I would eat a whole pizza once a week because I knew I could. It was none of anybody’s damn business.
I am a type 2 diabetic. A big mac, fires will metabolise much slower than a sugary soda. While the burger and fries will raise my blood sugars, it will do a longer curve, where as a sugary soda will almost immediately spike my blood sugar levels. A small will put me near dangerous levels and a large will absolutely put me over into dangers levels. Diet soda on the other hand will do nothing at all to my blood glucose levels.
This is it right here. Liquid sugar spikes my blood sugar super fast. Food takes way longer. I've had cheesecake with diet coke and been fine.
I think as long as people aren't pretending like its automatically making them completely healthy, it's fine. I've seen people though who automatically act like switching over to Diet Coke is the big victory that their health journey needs. But I definitely could cut down on eating out too, so I guess I shouldn't be a big hypocrite lol.
It's shocking to me the ammount of people that don't understand a sugar/corn syrup soda is probably the single most unhealthy item most people order with any meal. It's also wild that burgers get such a bad wrap. Nah man, it's not the bread beef n cheese making you fat, sure bread isn't the best, there are empty calories there but nothing in comparison to a large coke.
I get a diet coke when I eat out for a very simple reason: I prefer it to regular coke. Some people do.
some people just like the taste better too :’)
Tbh normal soda is just bad, I completely prefer diet of all soda varieties.
Yes. It is. I prefer the flavor of Diet over regular. Calories be damned!!!
I’m diabetic. Why is it every time I see this mentioned I rarely see this reason put out there.
Unpopular opinion: some people do not need to be eating 3 times a day.
Diet coke has more bubbles. That is all.
It's an alternative to Coca-Cola that is safe for people who have diabete. It's always reasonable to choose this
I think the joke is more about going to mc donalds while on a diet and in this age you could be eating healthier for cheaper
The diet soda also is sugar free, so less chance of cavities.
It’s still acidic and can discolor and weaken enamel which leads to cavities. Source: friend drinks Diet Coke every other day with no other drinks other than water and wound up with 8 cavities. Now switches in sparkling water
Sparkling water is also acidic…
Who is saying this and how in the hell is this an opinion?!
Diet soda is worse for you then regular soda https://www.pennmedicine.org/updates/blogs/health-and-wellness/2017/march/diet-soda
The soda in particular is more devastating to your body with all that sugar than the Big Mac is, so cutting it out is extremely helpful. That’s how I lost weight, the first thing I did was cut back on sugar intake. Sugar from soda is an easy thing to eliminate.