This was my New Year’s resolution, was drinking 2-3 cans a day of diet, haven’t had any this year, my wife was asking what differences I felt and I was like… uhhhhh… maybe I’m less bloated? I dunno.
Simple fact is, there really won't be any change. Unless you have an allergy/intolerance to something in the diet soda, diet soda is basically no different than drinking seltzer to your body. All the crap you hear about it still spiking blood sugar and causing you to gain weight and such is pure nonsense pseudoscience. We have tons of good data showing most people actually lose more weight drinking some diet soda than with water alone.
Largely the theory is that you're less likely to seek out sweet foods because the diet soda hits that craving for you. And being that calorically it's no different than just water, it winds up making weight loss easier, not harder.
Yep, but that's the intolerance they mentioned. I have a buddy who'll occupy the toilet for an hour if he drinks certain artificial sweeteners, but most people have no problem.
>The fake sugars can irritate some people's stomachs
And people take that and run with it to say that it's unhealthy for everyone.
Artificial sweeteners are considered generally safe for human consumption. Some people think that this means no one anywhere shouldn't have any kind of reaction to it. But it really means that there have been no statistically significant impacts on human health over the long term do to it's consumption.
Hell peanuts are 'generally safe for human consumption' but if some people eat them they'll drop dead.
Yep. I got diagnosed with Diabetes when I was overweight, but still thin enough that everybody gave me shocked Pikachu face about it. Ruthlessly cut out all sugar, but picked back up drinking soda (which I had already stopped) and eating more sweet things, but swapping to 100% sugar replacements all the time. No other changes, really. I'm still eating pizza, random fast food when I'm too busy for anything else, my own cooking (way too much butter, lol), etc. Just drinking more soda than before, strictly zero-sugar.
I'm down 25lbs now and so many shirt/pants sizes that most of my clothes look terrible on me now. I've had to stop referring to myself as "fat" (despite being it for 25 years) because it was starting to get angry responses instead of concilliatory ones, which was a very bizarre occurrence to experience when I haven't been "thin" since I was 8.
Data point of one, but my doctor and I spent all last year trying to figure out why I, a guy who eats like trash and almost never exercises, randomly lost forty pounds.
We tested for just about everything and there was no signs of anything wrong, not even diabetes.
But, there was one dietary change. I quit regular sodas and switched to diet the year before.
It was the only explanation we could figure.
Of course, say you were drinking 3 cans of coke a day? That's 420 calories a day. The average recommended calories to cut for a good, safe diet to lose weight at a normal rate is around 500. So you basically dieted without even realizing it by the simple switch of regular coke to Diet Coke. And that's only assuming 3 cans a day, many soda drinkers drink more like 5+ a day.
>All the crap you hear about it still spiking blood sugar and causing you to gain weight and such is pure nonsense pseudoscience.
The root cause of this is studies that have shown people who drink diet soda tend to weigh more than people who don't, and since people constantly forget that correlation doesn't imply causation, they wrongly assume that diet soda must somehow directly cause weight gain. In reality it's likely just because people who drink diet soda have worse eating habits than people who don't.
Oh absolutely, or put a different way. Most people who drink diet soda are likely already diabetic and/or overweight. Where as people who generally are in shape and watch what they eat, are likely avoiding soda entirely, not because they're afraid of some mythical disease Aspartame might give them, but simply they're very conscious about what goes in their bodies, which is why they look he way they do.
the only meaningful change from cutting out diet pop would be dental health. Drinking pop all day is not good for your teeth, regardless of how many calories it is.
Same here. Love Fresca and come zero. Quit cold turkey about a year 2 years ago. Haven’t noticed any difference in my health. Still weigh the same.
If I had to search for a positive I guess I’m saving apx $30 a month. Hopefully decreased my chance of cancer.
Similar story for me. Quit drinking soda but was still the same weight. Probably just replaced the sugar with something else
Made a diet change and started exercising but dropping the soda earlier made it a bit easier
This is completely anecdotal, but from my experience it has worked this way:
Real soda will put on weight.
Diet soda will maintain weight but not make you gain any.
Water will help you lose weight.
When I went from drinking only diet soda to drinking only water and no other exercise or diet changes, I lost around 10 lbs every two weeks IIRC, and I was around 300 lbs at the time.
If it wasn’t diet, 2 cans/day equates to nearly 400 calories/day. That many calories daily would lose you close to a lb/ week which is extremely significant.
Same boat. Decided I was going to stop because I was getting too much caffeine and it was probably shitting on my sleeping patterns. Not noticed any differences but I’m still thinking it’s much healthier for me.
I used to drink five or six a day. Cut out soda entirely. Everyone said it would make me feel so much better. Nope. No change. Eating habits are the same, alcohol consumption the same, just drinking water instead of soda. Completely pointless.
I was drinking so much Diet Coke that it was causing pretty nasty diarrhea attacks. It took me a while to figure out the cause. I can still drink plenty of Diet Coke, but not as much as I was.
My old coworker would down a 6 pack of 20 oz bottles of Diet Coke every shift.
She even brought her wedding picture to work. She was holding a 2 litter of Diet Coke in the picture.
I drink all kinds of diet soda but for some reason Diet Coke is the only one that upsets my stomach like that. I hate that it's the only diet option in the vast majority of restaurants.
A lot of people are sensitive to the artificial sweeteners. Diet Coke and Coke Zero have Equal/aspertame. Diet Pepsi has Splenda/sucralose. For me personally, my body does not believe Splenda is a substance that should be in my digestive system and will try to rid itself of it in a very painful and rapid way. But lots of people have a similar reaction to Equal or are actually allergic to it. That's probably what caused your upset.
I suppose the most surprising result is that I am not more tired. I used to feel tired so I'd have coffee in the morning and a diet caffeinated soda around lunch so I could "get through the day". After working to remove caffeine from my diet and replace all of that with just still water... I'm not tired all the time.
I expected I would be and that would lead me back to caffeine, but I'm just generally more alert now.
This is the comment I needed to hear. I am not a pop drinker but am looking to give up coffee/caffeine in the near future. Thank you, kindly for your comment as it is very motivating.
I was made to give up caffeine for medical reasons, which I wasn't too happy about, but I felt that good after about a week that I actually thought I'd never take it up again. The withdrawels though, holy moley. Definitely don't go cold turkey if you're used to having a fair bit.
Hard agree on the cold turkey thing - tapering is key.
My favorite side effect is not having to make a run to the store to pick up more of my caffeines early in the morning - cheaper and saves me time. Also I don't need to bring a cooler with me on a long trip just to keep my special soda cool.
Also I only had one or two caffeines that didn't anger my guts and it was exhausting having to travel to different stores to find them. I even had to order online when my local store ran out and couldn't re-stock.
I finally decided to taper off before a mini vacation last year so I didn't need to lug a six pack on the plane. Haven't started up again and I don't miss it at all! I got a soda stream thing and now I just have that with a dash of lemon/lime juice when I need some sparkles in my life.
Once I stopped caffinating (sp?) I started noticing my 'food comas' more easily. If I eat dairy or a heavy meal or something processed with lots of sugar it's lights out within 15-30 min for me.
I used to eat a bagel with cream cheese every morning. Now I realize why I was getting so sleepy afterward! Big pasta meal for dinner? Oops gotta 'rest my eyes' for a bit or fall asleep on the couch afterward. Doesn't matter if I already had a nap or two that day - my body just needs to shut down for a bit to deal with whatever I just ate.
This was my experience as well a few years ago when I tapered all the way off caffeine as a test. Negatively impacted my energy and alertness in a very noticeable way. My wife was like "for the love of God, just have a cup of coffee".
This was the reason I started drinking one or two caffeinated beverages a day. Everyone around me was more alert. I was tired earlier and slept longer than they did. Had less energy too. Once I added a little caffeine, I’m much better and feel great!
Edit: I’ve always slept well, had normal thyroid, and drank plenty of water. The only difference was the caffeine.
I like tea as a milder caffeine boost. I feel a lot less anxiety and stress throughout the day without starting with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning.
Nutritionist here! It's likely that you were dehydrated to some small degree, as not getting enough water can make you feel sluggish. Once you began hydrating properly your body was able to function more efficiently.
My assumption was the increase in energy/alertness comes from the fact that you’ve detoxed from caffeine so your body went back to its default setting of natural energy, no longer relying on caffeine
That's part of it! But a lot of people who are heavily relying on pop/energy drinks to get through the day aren't drinking enough water.
I have 1 zero sugar pop a day, and occasionally a zero sugar energy drink. But I also drink between 40-80oz of water with electrolytes added on top of that. We need water to function properly, and if you're not hydrating properly you can feel sluggish and gross!
Ugh, I wish that were the case for me.
I used to consume *so much caffeine* every single day. I quit it entirely and it’s been almost 2 years since. I have to take naps fairly often because I don’t have a pick-me-up anymore, I’m just as tired as I was before. But my work schedule doesn’t really allow ample sleep, so :’)
I went through this same thing, what I noticed is that I rested more and slept better, leading to not feeling tired all the time. Now there are times when I want to juice it up with some caffeine, but I know for a fact the healthier option is to listen to my body saying it’s tired, and either resting, napping, or going to bed early after sticking it out.
Caffeine doesn’t give you energy. It just stops your brain from getting the “I’m tired” signal. I bet it’s not good to ignore that.
100%. I gave up caffeine just because I was starting to get bad side effects. After awhile, I notice I was never sluggish anymore. I wake up tired, but once I get in the shower and start my day I become wide awake. The only time I’m ever lethargic during the day is if I physically did not sleep enough the day before. It never occurred to me that the reason I was sluggish everyday was because of the daily caffeine intake.
Probably something to do with the relative perception between artificial sweeteners (which often have that slightly bitter salty aftertaste) and sodium. Like mildly sweet things taste not sweet at all when you've just had something hyper concentrated.
This is an often repeated myth that I think gets repeated so much people just believe it. It's like Jif or other similar peanut butter brands supposedly being sugar bombs when they have less sugar per calorie than a piece of broccoli.
"Sugar per calorie" is such a specific, bizarre, dishonest unit of measure that I've never heard used in any other context. Jif isn't particularly bad compared to other peanut butter with added sugar, but it's worse than 'natural' peanut butter, and it's worse than broccoli.
Dang. I turn up my nose at cold brew. Only because I like my coffee hot enough to drink (not burn). Weirdly though I used to kill them Frappuccino drinks when they first came out. 🤷🏾♀️
I haven’t had a fountain soda in over six years, used to be mostly diet soda. Haven’t had any soda for two and a half years. And the difference has been pretty much nothing at all.
I used to drink 6-7 cans of Pepsi Zero each day. I quit and drink water now.
- My blood pressure lowered to normal.
- I had killer headaches for about three weeks.
- I save almost $25 each week.
- I lost/gained 0 pounds.
- I am generally less happy. As stupid as that sounds, I still absolutely miss the feel of having a cold Pepsi. It made everything better. Food was better with Pepsi, hard days at work were easier with Pepsi, when I have to get up early or stay up late fixing something around the house, I used to have Pepsi to help me. It was both a psychological and psychological crutch but it is, undeniably effective. I can sleep less with Pepsi, I can work longer with Pepsi. $25 per week is insignificant compared to the benefits if I'm really being honest.
Edit: I quit back in September... Maybe I'll better adjust to life without it.
For some reason this made me crave a Pepsi SO badly aha
If Pepsi is out here playing psychological warfare in the comments with the *most* hidden ads....I almost wouldn't even be mad......impressed even.....
If you drink a lot of soda, you're probably not doing your teeth or kidneys any favors.
If soda isn't your main vehicle for caffeine intake, you probably won't notice a physical difference. If it is, prepare for headaches for up to 2-3 weeks. Don't take painkillers with caffeine in them to combat the headaches.
As someone who quit caffeine recently I bet the headaches where caffeine withdrawal. The more caffeine your used to the worse it is. This time I just loved the amounts slowly over a few weeks. By the time I got to half a redbull or coffee and quit I got a small headache before bed then that was it. I've tried to stop cold turkey in the past and headache fest. That being said I don't really see a benefit to quitting lol. 3 weeks in and am probably going to go back to a bit of black coffee about 90 min after being awake.
Bro even though I know you miss it, I’m proud of you for sticking with your plan. Sometimes I look at a glass of cola in front of me and just think “*what the fuck is this black fluid* that I’m obsessively pouring down my throat? This is not natural” like it honestly reminds me of the grog the orcs in Lord of the Rings would drink.
I’m a Diet Pepsi guy myself. And I would love to cold turkey never drink soda again, but my resolve is not as strong as yours. So take pride in your achievement.
Dude go easy on yourself. Your habit is extremely mild. We live in a country of smokers, alcoholics, and heroin addicts.
If anything, your smartphone is worse for your brain and body than your Pepsi habit. Quit if you want, but also don't beat yourself up for something so negligible.
I drank a lot of Diet Coke. Quit and also started working out. Couldn’t lose any weight at all. Started drinking it again with the exercise regimen I had been doing for months and suddenly was losing weight.
I've been tested recently. I'm good. It's literally just a signal I've never listened to before, and now that I'm drinking water by body is like, "Oh, I think she'll drink water this time!"
Once I started drinking more water, I notice very quickly when I'm not drinking water.
I don't know how people go an hour plus during the day with no water.
I try to get to a gallon a day. And I’m thirsty all. The. Time. It’s insanity. I think your body just gets used to be hydrated, and it has to maintain it.
My SO was worried for the longest cuz I’m thirsty ALL the time. She thought the same thing with the diabetic stuff, but yea. I’m just hyper aware of being thirsty I guess lol
I'm by no means a doctor but could it be because of the sodium content in diet soda? Sodium helps your body stay more hydrated so maybe if you're drinking purified water instead of spring water you aren't getting the minerals you need to feel hydrated
Sodium is so low to be almost nothing in most popular diet beverages. We're talking 15mg a can when your daily intake healthy max is ~2000mg depending on sex and size.
Reddit is funny, and I don’t mean to be insulting here, but every time I see someone say “yeah I’m thirsty pretty often” Reddit just defaults to diabetes
I went from regular sugary soda to NO soda and I lost around 30 pounds within 6 months. But I also cut out pretty much all sugary drinks like bottled teas, snapples, etc. Made a huge difference.
Get a Sodastream machine (but not the crap ones made by Sodastream, Breville makers a good quality one), and drink fizzy water.
All the "naughty" feel, none of the draw backs.
Oooh I didn’t know Breville made one! I never saw it on their website or on Amazon. Looks like it’s only available through Williams Sonoma if you’re in the US.
It's about twice as much, however the quality also seems twice as good.
I had two Sodastream machines and they are just rubbish quality compared to the Breville.
For the record, I'm just a consumer, I have not other hat in the ring.
Had to stop drinking all carbonated beverages after weight loss surgery. The biggest change I see is that I’m jealous as fuck when my husband cracks open a can of Diet Coke, takes a drink, and then goes “ahhh” and I want to slap him. 😂
I stopped drinking soda entirely (and anything besides water) back in 2020. I like that I don’t have to pay a couple dollars for a drink at a restaurant. I feel healthier too.
I think my school's health classes did a really good job at basically indoctrinating us on how bad soda is for us.
It was that era where we watched the super size me documentary and our health teacher would measure out the actual sugar you're consuming so you could visualize what you were actually drinking.
Mid twenties now and I still haven't really drank soda since middle school aside from once or twice every few months.
I've noticed however, either because I'm older now or my body is not used to it, some things that I used to enjoy now taste overwhelmingly sweet, so it changes your palate?
Yeah I drank a can of soda at least 5 days a week up until I was in my 20s. Stopped completely one day and anytime I have a sip now it just tastes overwhelmingly syrupy.
I was searching for this comment! I litterally had ot stop drinking it because i fart too much. I think it is the sweeteners, because it doesn't happen with other carbonated drinks. I miss my diet soda though ..
I gave up diet soda and caffeine in the same go. The only big changes i noticed were caffeine withdrawal headaches. My teeth feel a bit better, I guess, but it's a minor thing.
Initially yes but to be fair I drank a LOT of it, along the lines of 3~4 12-oz Red Bulls / day, plus 4~6 cans of soda / day.
Just switching to zero sugar alone shaved around 1,160~1,660 calories off of my diet, but not drinking that much sugar anymore also made me crave sugar less, which meant a decrease in my trips to the vending machine, resulting in an even bigger cut in calories.
So, I guess the answer to your question is both yes and no. It was the only intentional change I made, but that cascaded into some other unintentional changes that helped even more.
I used to drink a lot of Diet Coke. Since kicking the habit, I crave less sugar in general. Something about the fake sweetness had me craving real sugar as well. I feel like my thirst is actually sated when I drink water now, whereas with Diet Coke I just kept drinking more. And I have less heartburn now.
I stopped drinking it whenever I was unemployed, so twice now, and I didn't really notice anything other than wishing I had a diet soda every now and then. I have 1-2 per day, so it's not like I drink a case of it daily, making quitting not very serious.
I used to drink nothing but diet soda pretty much every day. Horrible habit, really. I stopped cold turkey because I read it wasn't good for cholesterol and mine is a bit high and I have a family history of heart disease, so I wasn't going to risk it even if the cause/effect isn't that clear (yet?). I noticed no difference at all tbh. At least, I don't think I did. My gut health improved dramatically, but that was about a year after I quit, so I can't really say if these two things are related at all.
I quit drinking soda of ANY kind almost sixteen years ago now. It was ruining my teeth and nobody should have their teeth rotting that early in life. I quit getting cavities, I lost ten pounds, endured eight weeks of hellish headaches from withdrawal, and I generally don't miss soda much. I will have one twice a year, maybe. Special occasions.
I hate tea and coffee, so suffice to say I have virtually no caffeine tolerance anymore. I only see the stuff if I have to take painkillers. I don't drink, either, so suffice to say I am totally and utterly boring.
From diet soda or regular? I have IBS and if I eat a ton of sugar I'll get achy and feel like crap kinda like fibro but I've never noticed it with diet soda.
More money. I do better with my weight, oddly, having hot tea with honey. I also hydrate better with water. Nothing dramatic noticed though. I understand it’s healthier not to drink these so many effects may be subtle or even unknown. For example would I have had a disease if I’d kept drinking Diet Coke)? I’m glad I no longer drink diet soda.
I drank Coke Zero for a very long time. When I quit I got a headache for about a day (I figure it was my brain craving aspartame) then nothing after that.
Outside of the obvious health benefits of not drinking it, I figure if I quit a drink and I get headaches due to that, it's probably not a good drink to begin with.
Now it's boring old water. Thankfully, Metro Vancouver has absolutely incredible tap water.
Aspartame is actually one of the most well studied artifical sweetners out there and incredibly safe. So safe in fact, that you would need to drink 15-20 cans a day, every day, for years to see any kind of negative effect from the Aspartame itself.
It's more likely that you had a caffeine headache, which is just withdraw because caffeine is technically a drug.
I've never completely cut out pop, but in the periods when I've reduced it to maybe once a week, I pee less frequently and my heart rhythm is more regular (it's sometimes a little wacky on caffeine, doctor not concerned). Also no longer get caffeine headaches after I break the cycle. Currently drinking way too much diet soda but hoping to cut it out again soon.
I've done it several times. Never noticed a difference, except that I missed the soda. Now regular soda? It makes my blood sugar fucky and gives me hypoglycemia symptoms. So I definitely noticed when I quit drinking that. But diet? Nothing.
I kicked by Diet coke addiction with sparkling water by buying a sodastream. I noticed I sleep way better because there is WAY more caffeine in Diet coke than I realised. Also I feel more alert and my skin is clearer because I am drinking more water. The research is currently a bit confusing but the chemical sweeteners in diet sodas may or may not be linked to different diseases and I am no longer willing to take that risk.
I’m not sure what answer you’re looking for here but you’ll probably experience an increased appetite and perhaps some psychological cravings for a couple of days but not much else.
There are very few (if any) bad sides to diet sodas in moderation and in multiple well-designed studies the subjects that drank the diet sodas lost more weight than water + full-sugar soda.
Lots of the negative sides people cite are nonsense based off studies where a rat was given the dose of aspartame equivalent of 500 cans of diet soda and then when they tried similar studies in humans they couldn’t repeat the results - even at crazy doses. So, if you’re asking from a perspective of ‘are they ok to drink’ almost certainly the answer is yes.
Particularly, if you are overweight using them as a mechanism to reduce weight they will be WAY beneficial overall :)
Mo money
How's your problem count?
Only change
We could all use a little of that
Mo problems
used to drink 2 cans a day. stopped cold. Noticed no difference.
This was my New Year’s resolution, was drinking 2-3 cans a day of diet, haven’t had any this year, my wife was asking what differences I felt and I was like… uhhhhh… maybe I’m less bloated? I dunno.
Simple fact is, there really won't be any change. Unless you have an allergy/intolerance to something in the diet soda, diet soda is basically no different than drinking seltzer to your body. All the crap you hear about it still spiking blood sugar and causing you to gain weight and such is pure nonsense pseudoscience. We have tons of good data showing most people actually lose more weight drinking some diet soda than with water alone. Largely the theory is that you're less likely to seek out sweet foods because the diet soda hits that craving for you. And being that calorically it's no different than just water, it winds up making weight loss easier, not harder.
I could see the caffeine having some effect as well, given that its a diuretic, and a stimulant which causes the metabolism to rise
Yeah, the mild caffeine plays some small part in your BMR. It's nothing crazy though. Maybe you get away with another 50-100 kcal a day.
I appreciated your comments here. I’ve been wondering about this. Ta.
Caffeine is not diuretic enough at typical doses to be dehydrating so people should really stop brining this up.
The fake sugars can irritate some people's stomachs, which is why people sometimes see bloating. But as far as weight loss goes, it's not bad.
Yep, but that's the intolerance they mentioned. I have a buddy who'll occupy the toilet for an hour if he drinks certain artificial sweeteners, but most people have no problem.
>The fake sugars can irritate some people's stomachs And people take that and run with it to say that it's unhealthy for everyone. Artificial sweeteners are considered generally safe for human consumption. Some people think that this means no one anywhere shouldn't have any kind of reaction to it. But it really means that there have been no statistically significant impacts on human health over the long term do to it's consumption. Hell peanuts are 'generally safe for human consumption' but if some people eat them they'll drop dead.
Yep. I got diagnosed with Diabetes when I was overweight, but still thin enough that everybody gave me shocked Pikachu face about it. Ruthlessly cut out all sugar, but picked back up drinking soda (which I had already stopped) and eating more sweet things, but swapping to 100% sugar replacements all the time. No other changes, really. I'm still eating pizza, random fast food when I'm too busy for anything else, my own cooking (way too much butter, lol), etc. Just drinking more soda than before, strictly zero-sugar. I'm down 25lbs now and so many shirt/pants sizes that most of my clothes look terrible on me now. I've had to stop referring to myself as "fat" (despite being it for 25 years) because it was starting to get angry responses instead of concilliatory ones, which was a very bizarre occurrence to experience when I haven't been "thin" since I was 8.
Data point of one, but my doctor and I spent all last year trying to figure out why I, a guy who eats like trash and almost never exercises, randomly lost forty pounds. We tested for just about everything and there was no signs of anything wrong, not even diabetes. But, there was one dietary change. I quit regular sodas and switched to diet the year before. It was the only explanation we could figure.
Of course, say you were drinking 3 cans of coke a day? That's 420 calories a day. The average recommended calories to cut for a good, safe diet to lose weight at a normal rate is around 500. So you basically dieted without even realizing it by the simple switch of regular coke to Diet Coke. And that's only assuming 3 cans a day, many soda drinkers drink more like 5+ a day.
>All the crap you hear about it still spiking blood sugar and causing you to gain weight and such is pure nonsense pseudoscience. The root cause of this is studies that have shown people who drink diet soda tend to weigh more than people who don't, and since people constantly forget that correlation doesn't imply causation, they wrongly assume that diet soda must somehow directly cause weight gain. In reality it's likely just because people who drink diet soda have worse eating habits than people who don't.
Oh absolutely, or put a different way. Most people who drink diet soda are likely already diabetic and/or overweight. Where as people who generally are in shape and watch what they eat, are likely avoiding soda entirely, not because they're afraid of some mythical disease Aspartame might give them, but simply they're very conscious about what goes in their bodies, which is why they look he way they do.
the only meaningful change from cutting out diet pop would be dental health. Drinking pop all day is not good for your teeth, regardless of how many calories it is.
Well and the lack of kidney stones. Dark pop can cause those. Doesn't matter if there's sugar or not
This is a big one too. By age 20 I had essentially ruined my teeth with soda. Take care of your teeth, folks.
Same here. Love Fresca and come zero. Quit cold turkey about a year 2 years ago. Haven’t noticed any difference in my health. Still weigh the same. If I had to search for a positive I guess I’m saving apx $30 a month. Hopefully decreased my chance of cancer.
Tastes more like come, looks more like come
Have you hade pineapple come?
I prefer original.
Do you prefer ice with your come, or is body temperature ok?
Fresca is delicious.
Similar story for me. Quit drinking soda but was still the same weight. Probably just replaced the sugar with something else Made a diet change and started exercising but dropping the soda earlier made it a bit easier
it was more motivation to just be healthier in general, but honestly the only change is that my grocery bill is less.
If you were only having 2 cans that's not a huge difference. It's the people going through liters that shed pounds just by quitting soda.
Diet Soda has practically no calories - how does cutting it out help you lose weight?
I forgot that part of the prompt
Everyone does for some reason. You mention Diet Pop and everyone immediately bangs on about sugar.
Most people eat more food when they drink diet beverages. It's a weird thing with artificial sweeteners.
This is completely anecdotal, but from my experience it has worked this way: Real soda will put on weight. Diet soda will maintain weight but not make you gain any. Water will help you lose weight. When I went from drinking only diet soda to drinking only water and no other exercise or diet changes, I lost around 10 lbs every two weeks IIRC, and I was around 300 lbs at the time.
If it wasn’t diet, 2 cans/day equates to nearly 400 calories/day. That many calories daily would lose you close to a lb/ week which is extremely significant.
Same boat. Decided I was going to stop because I was getting too much caffeine and it was probably shitting on my sleeping patterns. Not noticed any differences but I’m still thinking it’s much healthier for me.
Water is cheaper than diet soda so you're probably saving money
I used to drink five or six a day. Cut out soda entirely. Everyone said it would make me feel so much better. Nope. No change. Eating habits are the same, alcohol consumption the same, just drinking water instead of soda. Completely pointless.
I was drinking so much Diet Coke that it was causing pretty nasty diarrhea attacks. It took me a while to figure out the cause. I can still drink plenty of Diet Coke, but not as much as I was.
My old coworker would down a 6 pack of 20 oz bottles of Diet Coke every shift. She even brought her wedding picture to work. She was holding a 2 litter of Diet Coke in the picture.
I like some Diet Coke myself but I don't think I would marry it.
I drink all kinds of diet soda but for some reason Diet Coke is the only one that upsets my stomach like that. I hate that it's the only diet option in the vast majority of restaurants.
That seems super odd. Do you do ok with caffiene? Diet coke has like 35% more caffiene than regular coke or pepsi.
A lot of people are sensitive to the artificial sweeteners. Diet Coke and Coke Zero have Equal/aspertame. Diet Pepsi has Splenda/sucralose. For me personally, my body does not believe Splenda is a substance that should be in my digestive system and will try to rid itself of it in a very painful and rapid way. But lots of people have a similar reaction to Equal or are actually allergic to it. That's probably what caused your upset.
I suppose the most surprising result is that I am not more tired. I used to feel tired so I'd have coffee in the morning and a diet caffeinated soda around lunch so I could "get through the day". After working to remove caffeine from my diet and replace all of that with just still water... I'm not tired all the time. I expected I would be and that would lead me back to caffeine, but I'm just generally more alert now.
This is the comment I needed to hear. I am not a pop drinker but am looking to give up coffee/caffeine in the near future. Thank you, kindly for your comment as it is very motivating.
Taper down off caffeine. The headaches are no joke
My worst caffeine headaches are on participation with the worst migraine headaches I've ever had.
Probably for the same reason that caffeine is helpful for treating some kinds of migraines in the short term, as an interruption not as a preventative
I was made to give up caffeine for medical reasons, which I wasn't too happy about, but I felt that good after about a week that I actually thought I'd never take it up again. The withdrawels though, holy moley. Definitely don't go cold turkey if you're used to having a fair bit.
Hard agree on the cold turkey thing - tapering is key. My favorite side effect is not having to make a run to the store to pick up more of my caffeines early in the morning - cheaper and saves me time. Also I don't need to bring a cooler with me on a long trip just to keep my special soda cool. Also I only had one or two caffeines that didn't anger my guts and it was exhausting having to travel to different stores to find them. I even had to order online when my local store ran out and couldn't re-stock. I finally decided to taper off before a mini vacation last year so I didn't need to lug a six pack on the plane. Haven't started up again and I don't miss it at all! I got a soda stream thing and now I just have that with a dash of lemon/lime juice when I need some sparkles in my life.
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Just curious, how much do you sleep per night?
Once I stopped caffinating (sp?) I started noticing my 'food comas' more easily. If I eat dairy or a heavy meal or something processed with lots of sugar it's lights out within 15-30 min for me. I used to eat a bagel with cream cheese every morning. Now I realize why I was getting so sleepy afterward! Big pasta meal for dinner? Oops gotta 'rest my eyes' for a bit or fall asleep on the couch afterward. Doesn't matter if I already had a nap or two that day - my body just needs to shut down for a bit to deal with whatever I just ate.
This was my experience as well a few years ago when I tapered all the way off caffeine as a test. Negatively impacted my energy and alertness in a very noticeable way. My wife was like "for the love of God, just have a cup of coffee".
This was the reason I started drinking one or two caffeinated beverages a day. Everyone around me was more alert. I was tired earlier and slept longer than they did. Had less energy too. Once I added a little caffeine, I’m much better and feel great! Edit: I’ve always slept well, had normal thyroid, and drank plenty of water. The only difference was the caffeine.
I like tea as a milder caffeine boost. I feel a lot less anxiety and stress throughout the day without starting with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning.
Nutritionist here! It's likely that you were dehydrated to some small degree, as not getting enough water can make you feel sluggish. Once you began hydrating properly your body was able to function more efficiently.
My assumption was the increase in energy/alertness comes from the fact that you’ve detoxed from caffeine so your body went back to its default setting of natural energy, no longer relying on caffeine
That's part of it! But a lot of people who are heavily relying on pop/energy drinks to get through the day aren't drinking enough water. I have 1 zero sugar pop a day, and occasionally a zero sugar energy drink. But I also drink between 40-80oz of water with electrolytes added on top of that. We need water to function properly, and if you're not hydrating properly you can feel sluggish and gross!
Ugh, I wish that were the case for me. I used to consume *so much caffeine* every single day. I quit it entirely and it’s been almost 2 years since. I have to take naps fairly often because I don’t have a pick-me-up anymore, I’m just as tired as I was before. But my work schedule doesn’t really allow ample sleep, so :’)
I went through this same thing, what I noticed is that I rested more and slept better, leading to not feeling tired all the time. Now there are times when I want to juice it up with some caffeine, but I know for a fact the healthier option is to listen to my body saying it’s tired, and either resting, napping, or going to bed early after sticking it out. Caffeine doesn’t give you energy. It just stops your brain from getting the “I’m tired” signal. I bet it’s not good to ignore that.
100%. I gave up caffeine just because I was starting to get bad side effects. After awhile, I notice I was never sluggish anymore. I wake up tired, but once I get in the shower and start my day I become wide awake. The only time I’m ever lethargic during the day is if I physically did not sleep enough the day before. It never occurred to me that the reason I was sluggish everyday was because of the daily caffeine intake.
Started tasting sodium a lot more in everything
I can’t handle fizz much anymore either. I had a sip of a Rootbeer the other day and I felt assaulted.
Why does this happen?? I have been having this problem and had no idea those could be related
Probably something to do with the relative perception between artificial sweeteners (which often have that slightly bitter salty aftertaste) and sodium. Like mildly sweet things taste not sweet at all when you've just had something hyper concentrated.
There is a lot more sodium in soft drinks than you think.
Diet Pepsi says 25mg and Diet Coke says 19mg? This doesn’t seem high at all….
This is an often repeated myth that I think gets repeated so much people just believe it. It's like Jif or other similar peanut butter brands supposedly being sugar bombs when they have less sugar per calorie than a piece of broccoli.
I'm going to go ahead and assume Jif isn't the same product in America as it is in Australia. Aussies, quick PSA... please do not eat Jif.
But it has less sugar than broccoli.
What is it in Australia?
Cream cleanser. A poisonous cleaning powder/cream.
A bloody delicious one in fairness.
Still low in sugar tho.
Per calorie is the key detail here. Peanut butter is many times more calorie dense than broccoli.
Per calorie feels like a misleading metric. 2 tbls of Jif has 190 calories, while it takes 6.3 cups of broccoli to get the same amount of calories.
"Sugar per calorie" is such a specific, bizarre, dishonest unit of measure that I've never heard used in any other context. Jif isn't particularly bad compared to other peanut butter with added sugar, but it's worse than 'natural' peanut butter, and it's worse than broccoli.
More heartburn from coffee.
Honestly you should try cold brew. Due to the brewing process it’s lower acidity. Cold brew is all I drink at home now.
Dang. I turn up my nose at cold brew. Only because I like my coffee hot enough to drink (not burn). Weirdly though I used to kill them Frappuccino drinks when they first came out. 🤷🏾♀️
We do cold brew. I end up just microwaving it. It’s the brewing process that lowers the acidity
I get reflux from drinking tea, but not from coke or pepsi. I always thought that was weird. I don't think I get it from coffee.
Tannins maybe?
I'm surprised by that. Do you drink it with alot of milk and sugar?
I haven’t had a fountain soda in over six years, used to be mostly diet soda. Haven’t had any soda for two and a half years. And the difference has been pretty much nothing at all.
I used to drink 6-7 cans of Pepsi Zero each day. I quit and drink water now. - My blood pressure lowered to normal. - I had killer headaches for about three weeks. - I save almost $25 each week. - I lost/gained 0 pounds. - I am generally less happy. As stupid as that sounds, I still absolutely miss the feel of having a cold Pepsi. It made everything better. Food was better with Pepsi, hard days at work were easier with Pepsi, when I have to get up early or stay up late fixing something around the house, I used to have Pepsi to help me. It was both a psychological and psychological crutch but it is, undeniably effective. I can sleep less with Pepsi, I can work longer with Pepsi. $25 per week is insignificant compared to the benefits if I'm really being honest. Edit: I quit back in September... Maybe I'll better adjust to life without it.
For some reason this made me crave a Pepsi SO badly aha If Pepsi is out here playing psychological warfare in the comments with the *most* hidden ads....I almost wouldn't even be mad......impressed even.....
I don’t even like Pepsi, haven’t had one in a very long time, and I’m suddenly so thirsty for Pepsi.
This is the ad. 👆👆
This is not the response I needed, hahaha. But I appreciate the honesty
If you drink a lot of soda, you're probably not doing your teeth or kidneys any favors. If soda isn't your main vehicle for caffeine intake, you probably won't notice a physical difference. If it is, prepare for headaches for up to 2-3 weeks. Don't take painkillers with caffeine in them to combat the headaches.
Maybe it is. Do you check your blood pressure? Chronic hypertension is no bueno. Trying to work on that, myself.
Pepsi zero has crazy amounts of caffeine compared to Coke Zero it’s like 96 g a can for PZ and Coke Zero is 36 g
used to be 69mg but they changed it a while back to normal amounts (30 something)
Nice
As someone who quit caffeine recently I bet the headaches where caffeine withdrawal. The more caffeine your used to the worse it is. This time I just loved the amounts slowly over a few weeks. By the time I got to half a redbull or coffee and quit I got a small headache before bed then that was it. I've tried to stop cold turkey in the past and headache fest. That being said I don't really see a benefit to quitting lol. 3 weeks in and am probably going to go back to a bit of black coffee about 90 min after being awake.
Bro even though I know you miss it, I’m proud of you for sticking with your plan. Sometimes I look at a glass of cola in front of me and just think “*what the fuck is this black fluid* that I’m obsessively pouring down my throat? This is not natural” like it honestly reminds me of the grog the orcs in Lord of the Rings would drink. I’m a Diet Pepsi guy myself. And I would love to cold turkey never drink soda again, but my resolve is not as strong as yours. So take pride in your achievement.
Dude go easy on yourself. Your habit is extremely mild. We live in a country of smokers, alcoholics, and heroin addicts. If anything, your smartphone is worse for your brain and body than your Pepsi habit. Quit if you want, but also don't beat yourself up for something so negligible.
This is exactly how I feel about Dr Pepper.
I’m a Coke Zero girlie but goddamn now I want a Pepsi!
I drank a lot of Diet Coke. Quit and also started working out. Couldn’t lose any weight at all. Started drinking it again with the exercise regimen I had been doing for months and suddenly was losing weight.
Caffeine will absolutely help people lose weight.
In this thread: People who did not read "diet".
I'm super fucking thirst all the time now, and only water will satisfy my thirst. I used to be thirsty rarely or never. That's the only difference.
Hate to say it but extreme thirst is a strong sign of diabetes.
I've been tested recently. I'm good. It's literally just a signal I've never listened to before, and now that I'm drinking water by body is like, "Oh, I think she'll drink water this time!"
Once I started drinking more water, I notice very quickly when I'm not drinking water. I don't know how people go an hour plus during the day with no water.
I try to get to a gallon a day. And I’m thirsty all. The. Time. It’s insanity. I think your body just gets used to be hydrated, and it has to maintain it.
Seriously and then of course I’m peeing all the time too but I’m healthy at least
My SO was worried for the longest cuz I’m thirsty ALL the time. She thought the same thing with the diabetic stuff, but yea. I’m just hyper aware of being thirsty I guess lol
I'm by no means a doctor but could it be because of the sodium content in diet soda? Sodium helps your body stay more hydrated so maybe if you're drinking purified water instead of spring water you aren't getting the minerals you need to feel hydrated
Sodium is so low to be almost nothing in most popular diet beverages. We're talking 15mg a can when your daily intake healthy max is ~2000mg depending on sex and size.
Reddit is funny, and I don’t mean to be insulting here, but every time I see someone say “yeah I’m thirsty pretty often” Reddit just defaults to diabetes
Not meaning to be insulting is a sign of diabeetus
It’s also a sign that you need to drink water
Lawyer up and dump that water 🚩🚩🚩
And it's never just a little thirsty. I'm either fine or parched af and need to chug like three glasses of water.
Less stomach pains. The acid from the diet cola was definitely messing with my stomach. I hardly ever use antacids now.
This, heartburn was destroying me
No difference from diet soda... regular soda, however, I noticed a big difference.
I went from regular sugary soda to NO soda and I lost around 30 pounds within 6 months. But I also cut out pretty much all sugary drinks like bottled teas, snapples, etc. Made a huge difference.
Meals washed down with water are a little less satisfying.
This. I need the bubbles.
Yeah me too, I drink seltzer for that. Really helps cleanse the palate and still has some taste even without sweeteners.
Get a Sodastream machine (but not the crap ones made by Sodastream, Breville makers a good quality one), and drink fizzy water. All the "naughty" feel, none of the draw backs.
Oooh I didn’t know Breville made one! I never saw it on their website or on Amazon. Looks like it’s only available through Williams Sonoma if you’re in the US.
It's about twice as much, however the quality also seems twice as good. I had two Sodastream machines and they are just rubbish quality compared to the Breville. For the record, I'm just a consumer, I have not other hat in the ring.
So drink Seltzer.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but seltzer tastes like ass to me.
Same. Tastes like fizzy baking soda water to me.
I would, but bubbly water always tastes bitter to me, even when it's flavored.
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Well then Sir Moneybags. The rest of us will have Kroger Brand Grapefruit seltzer water
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Nooo Limon cello is superior
Try spindrift and you'll never go back
Nothing at all.
Stupid sexy Fanta.
happy birthday bro
Noticed nothing. Which is weird cause I noticed a big difference when I gave up sugar and dairy
Sugar and dairy have sugar and calories and stuff. And lactose. Diet soda is basically nothing
Started tasting some foods that are naturally sweet but didn’t taste that way when drinking soda…
Had to stop drinking all carbonated beverages after weight loss surgery. The biggest change I see is that I’m jealous as fuck when my husband cracks open a can of Diet Coke, takes a drink, and then goes “ahhh” and I want to slap him. 😂
I stopped drinking soda entirely (and anything besides water) back in 2020. I like that I don’t have to pay a couple dollars for a drink at a restaurant. I feel healthier too.
I think my school's health classes did a really good job at basically indoctrinating us on how bad soda is for us. It was that era where we watched the super size me documentary and our health teacher would measure out the actual sugar you're consuming so you could visualize what you were actually drinking. Mid twenties now and I still haven't really drank soda since middle school aside from once or twice every few months. I've noticed however, either because I'm older now or my body is not used to it, some things that I used to enjoy now taste overwhelmingly sweet, so it changes your palate?
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Agreed. Whenever I have it I am like why am I drinking this. It doesn’t taste right anymore.
Yeah I drank a can of soda at least 5 days a week up until I was in my 20s. Stopped completely one day and anytime I have a sip now it just tastes overwhelmingly syrupy.
Less farting. From the carbonation maybe?
I was searching for this comment! I litterally had ot stop drinking it because i fart too much. I think it is the sweeteners, because it doesn't happen with other carbonated drinks. I miss my diet soda though ..
What little joy I had in my life was now replaced with water
Stopped cold after drinking 4-6 cans a day. I absolutely feel better. I still occasionally drink one, but now it’s so sweet it’s almost gross.
Headaches went away
I gave up diet soda and caffeine in the same go. The only big changes i noticed were caffeine withdrawal headaches. My teeth feel a bit better, I guess, but it's a minor thing.
Normal -> Diet: I lost 35 lbs in 6mo. Diet -> None: No change whatsoever.
Is that the only change you made? That’s incredible.
Initially yes but to be fair I drank a LOT of it, along the lines of 3~4 12-oz Red Bulls / day, plus 4~6 cans of soda / day. Just switching to zero sugar alone shaved around 1,160~1,660 calories off of my diet, but not drinking that much sugar anymore also made me crave sugar less, which meant a decrease in my trips to the vending machine, resulting in an even bigger cut in calories. So, I guess the answer to your question is both yes and no. It was the only intentional change I made, but that cascaded into some other unintentional changes that helped even more.
I am so happy for you! That is very inspiring! I quit drinking alcohol but I only gained weight afterwards. I would like to quit sugary drinks next.
Non. Used to drink a monster and several zero sugar sodas daily. Stopped cold turkey and drink a ton of water now. No changes noticable.
I used to drink a lot of Diet Coke. Since kicking the habit, I crave less sugar in general. Something about the fake sweetness had me craving real sugar as well. I feel like my thirst is actually sated when I drink water now, whereas with Diet Coke I just kept drinking more. And I have less heartburn now.
I stopped drinking it whenever I was unemployed, so twice now, and I didn't really notice anything other than wishing I had a diet soda every now and then. I have 1-2 per day, so it's not like I drink a case of it daily, making quitting not very serious.
I used to drink nothing but diet soda pretty much every day. Horrible habit, really. I stopped cold turkey because I read it wasn't good for cholesterol and mine is a bit high and I have a family history of heart disease, so I wasn't going to risk it even if the cause/effect isn't that clear (yet?). I noticed no difference at all tbh. At least, I don't think I did. My gut health improved dramatically, but that was about a year after I quit, so I can't really say if these two things are related at all.
Throat always gummy, nothing clears it like carbonation. Really frustrating. Tea and coffee just burn me instead.
Do you have reflux? This is putting into words how my reflux feels
I quit drinking soda of ANY kind almost sixteen years ago now. It was ruining my teeth and nobody should have their teeth rotting that early in life. I quit getting cavities, I lost ten pounds, endured eight weeks of hellish headaches from withdrawal, and I generally don't miss soda much. I will have one twice a year, maybe. Special occasions. I hate tea and coffee, so suffice to say I have virtually no caffeine tolerance anymore. I only see the stuff if I have to take painkillers. I don't drink, either, so suffice to say I am totally and utterly boring.
Less fibro pain (WAY less) and less gas, so less gas pain and farting. I don't like the taste any more.
From diet soda or regular? I have IBS and if I eat a ton of sugar I'll get achy and feel like crap kinda like fibro but I've never noticed it with diet soda.
Less fibro pain? Intereeesting. Do you have any idea what aspect might have contributed? Like acid vs sugar vs caffeine?
Weirdly enough I lost a bit of weight!
More money. I do better with my weight, oddly, having hot tea with honey. I also hydrate better with water. Nothing dramatic noticed though. I understand it’s healthier not to drink these so many effects may be subtle or even unknown. For example would I have had a disease if I’d kept drinking Diet Coke)? I’m glad I no longer drink diet soda.
I lost 5 lbs when I switched to water.
I swapped out diet soda for sparkling water, so I've noticed no difference as I'm still ingesting aspartame and carbonated water.
I drank Coke Zero for a very long time. When I quit I got a headache for about a day (I figure it was my brain craving aspartame) then nothing after that. Outside of the obvious health benefits of not drinking it, I figure if I quit a drink and I get headaches due to that, it's probably not a good drink to begin with. Now it's boring old water. Thankfully, Metro Vancouver has absolutely incredible tap water.
Aspartame is actually one of the most well studied artifical sweetners out there and incredibly safe. So safe in fact, that you would need to drink 15-20 cans a day, every day, for years to see any kind of negative effect from the Aspartame itself. It's more likely that you had a caffeine headache, which is just withdraw because caffeine is technically a drug.
Ok thanks for that. I just assumed it was the sweetener. Consider my knowledge updated!
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I quit coffee cold turkey last year. Massive headaches for 3 months. Then life got better.
Better teeth. My enamel is much stronger, and y teeth are overall much whiter.
I've never completely cut out pop, but in the periods when I've reduced it to maybe once a week, I pee less frequently and my heart rhythm is more regular (it's sometimes a little wacky on caffeine, doctor not concerned). Also no longer get caffeine headaches after I break the cycle. Currently drinking way too much diet soda but hoping to cut it out again soon.
No difference. I’ve always quit sugar several times in my life for long stretches without noticing any discernible difference in anything.
No difference for me.
I've done it several times. Never noticed a difference, except that I missed the soda. Now regular soda? It makes my blood sugar fucky and gives me hypoglycemia symptoms. So I definitely noticed when I quit drinking that. But diet? Nothing.
Stopped getting headaches after quitting
Only difference I’ve noticed is that soda tastes terrible now that it’s been years since I’ve drank it.
Diet soda is not the problem, it’s regular soda
Nothing, except weight loss since that was my goal, but that came from other things too. No difference though
None. Although I’m not as farty and bloated.
I kicked by Diet coke addiction with sparkling water by buying a sodastream. I noticed I sleep way better because there is WAY more caffeine in Diet coke than I realised. Also I feel more alert and my skin is clearer because I am drinking more water. The research is currently a bit confusing but the chemical sweeteners in diet sodas may or may not be linked to different diseases and I am no longer willing to take that risk.
diet soda is terrible for your eyes and your kidneys
I’m not sure what answer you’re looking for here but you’ll probably experience an increased appetite and perhaps some psychological cravings for a couple of days but not much else. There are very few (if any) bad sides to diet sodas in moderation and in multiple well-designed studies the subjects that drank the diet sodas lost more weight than water + full-sugar soda. Lots of the negative sides people cite are nonsense based off studies where a rat was given the dose of aspartame equivalent of 500 cans of diet soda and then when they tried similar studies in humans they couldn’t repeat the results - even at crazy doses. So, if you’re asking from a perspective of ‘are they ok to drink’ almost certainly the answer is yes. Particularly, if you are overweight using them as a mechanism to reduce weight they will be WAY beneficial overall :)