I've read this as well, but I'm wondering. What is it exactly that makes the diet sodas so bad? Is it the artificial sweetner or a combination of things? Because if it's the artificial sweetner, my guess is I should walk away from the Splenda. I've dumped sugar in my house for a few months now and use Splenda to sweeten tea and cook with. I thought it was "healthier," but a coworker recently told me that artificial sweetners were "toxic." Should I not do this?

A recent issue of Weight watcher's magazine had an article in it that stated asparatame, one of the ingredients that are in many diet sodas has been shown to stimulate the appetite...

I haven't had a soda, diet or otherwise, since the night a few years ago, I poured a glass of diet coke into the toilet because I was too lazy to walk to the kitchen... I came back 20 minutes later and after flushing -- the toilet was cleaner than if I used a gallon of bleach... Did I really want that in my tummy?

I had to get away from diet sodas. The more I drank the more sugar I wanted. Its like my body thought it was sugar and really put the sugar cravings into overdrive.

Honestly, I was a big time cola drinker. I switched to diet/zero and it hasn't hindered my weight loss at all, nor do I crave the "real" thing. I think that people that drink diet soft drinks and continue to eat crap food are not going to lose weight, that's just a given.

Cola just doesn't attribute enough to your daily caloric intake to see any gains from only cutting it out (unless you drink a mammoth amount!). But when combined with proper eating, a switch to diet soft drinks should help. That extra 150 calories per can really will add up.

As for these "cravings" for non diet pop, I can only say that everyone is different.

MDM_, I agree with you.

Chip

I gave up almost all sodas early in my plan. I now drink water, tea (green or black), fruit juices, rooibos, or er ... booze (a man has to have at least two weaknesses!). On rare occasions I will drink a diet coke, but not often.

Is Diet Soda bad for you?
Or is it just a myth?

Have you ever wondered how much of these things about weight loss we here are myths?

Don't just post something like"Yes, it's bad for you, it can cause cancer, it can cause water retention, etc."

Are there any actual studies of this?

cause your risk for obesity to soar:
Drink More Diet Soda, Gain More Weight?


trash your teeth:
Diet Soda


cancer and other nasty crap due to Aspartame:
April 1997: 6th Grader, Jennifer Cohen, proves aspartame is an unstable chameleon-like poison!


Could there be evils lurking in aspartame consumption

Thanks for the links corndoggy. Not a happy read for someone who's long consumed and even advocated diet drinks, but informative.

Take the tinfoil hats off please.

You will never get a definitive clear answer on this either way. People take substances and do unusual things to it until they find a recipe to 'cook' up a way to create a buzz. If you dedicate enough time to any cause, you'll eventually find a way to convince yourself there is something harmful in anything.

"More than a dozen animal tests over the last thirty years have demonstrated the carcinogenic effects of saccharin in the bladder and other sites, particularly female reproductive organs, and in some instances at doses as low as the equivalent of one to two bottles of diet pop daily."

The health effects of drinking soda - quotes from the experts

All I know is that if I drink water I drink water I lose weight - if I drink diet soda my weight loss stops (and regular soda just want to be brought into the equation!)

So are ya'll telling me that I'm probably not losing weight because of my diet soda consumption?

I've slowly increased my diet pop intake the last two weeks. Not much, but I quit drinking it years ago. My ulcer is back now. Time to cut out the aspartame again.

Dari: You've caught up to me! I'm jealous....I seem to be at a freakin' stand still with weight loss. I've only lost 6 pounds in the last 2 months. It sucks. But congrats to you---and save a place for me in the 150's club...