Can diet drinks make you fat?

[small steps]

Umm..... I'm undecided on the truth about diet drinks. There seems to be a new study every week saying X or Y makes us fat.

I suspect my lifestyle of high calorie processed dinners, rather than diet drinks is responsible for making me rather porky.

I have been watching old episodes of the Biggest Loser; the trainer Bob Harper has previously advised contestants to cut out diet soda because it makes you crave sweets and it has no nutritional value.

Many health/diet websites advise against diet drinks, so there must be an underlying concern about diet drinks.

I'm glad the original article was posted - food for thought.... For me, drinking diet coke, stops me having a glass of wine or snacks, which must be better for my waist line?

 

[charm]

I have also wondered this. i tend to use diet drinks to help fill me up and stop cravings. I too have a drink to avoid having higher cal drinks and snacks. I guess they can make you quite bloated and the caffeine is not good either, but I think i'll still drink them for now as its helping my initial weightloss.

 

[soozy84]

I was drinking soda water and cranberry with a wedge of lime on Thursday night when I went out (had the car). Was very yummy. Going to try drinking it at home in the hope that it helps me kick my diet coke habit!

I also bought Strathmore blackcurrant flavoured water last week. I normally hate flavoured water but it was really tasty.

 

[Snakes and ladders]

Mmm, that sounds nice, I'll have to try that! I've stayed away from cranberry juice lately, as I always associate it with having to drink it when I had cystitis (sorry if TMI!). I think it's time to give it more positive associations though!

I've started to have elderflower cordeal (home-made!) with soda water, or sugar-free lime squash with soda water, if I want something refreshing that isn't water.

 

[spangles]

I suspect part of the problem I have with diet drinks is that they keep me in the habit of expecting something sweet-tasting all through the day. I don't drink tea or coffee and I'm afraid I'm too easily tempted by the sweetness of a squash or fizzy drink (always diet, I hate the feel of sugary drinks on my teeth) instead of water.

However, I'm going to have to give them up, as only water is allowed on the Cambridge diet - and I wonder if perhaps forcing myself to forgo that constant sweetness will help me crave fewer sweet foods.

 

[Snakes and ladders]

I had a bad day today, diet-wise: I kept craving carbs and sugar, and ended up giving in to most of a bag of Haribo and some chocolate too. I didn't know why, as I don't normally crave sugar anymore these days (having dieted for a while, my taste buds changed, I guess).

Now I think it might be because for the first time in an eternity, I had a bottle of diet Coke after a sweaty game of badminton. I think that made me want more sweet stuff all day!

It's good to have determined the culprit, I guess!

 

[rowanx2]

No, it cant make you fat as it doesnt have the calories in it to put weight on you.... I've drank diet cola for years but thats not what made me fat, its what stops me from getting bigger though, otherwise I would be adding around 1,000 calories extra a day on with 2 litres of cola. x

 

[rowanx2]

Plus don't froget they will be looking at the people who do drink pop, the overweight people who do crave more food/sugary food anyway!
They would need to look at normal BMI'd people and see what they crave and leave 'us lot' out of the study. If I drank water only I bet I would still crave chocolate.

 

[Katesands8]

It's not the diet drinks themselves that make you fat but the craving for sweet things that the artificial sweeteners leave you with.
When you have a diet drink your brain gets the message that you're getting an intake of sweetness, but your body doesn't receive the promised goods! So when come down off the artificial sugar "high" your body goes lower than before you had it because it was geared up to burn that sugar!
That's when you hit the real food to provide the sustenance that your body wants (and needs by that time!).
That's why they ask the question "Do diet drinks make you fat?"
Craving chocolate would be a different study and not necessarally linked to artificial sweeteners!
I crave chocolate around my TOTM when I get the hormone dip once my hormone levels are back up I can go back to completely ignoring chocolate, but for 2/3 days every month I have to battle the urge not to mug babies and small children for the melting chocolate they've got all over their hands and faces!

 

[Vitology]

Ive always ben a fan of full fat pepsi or lucozade, started at sw and went onto diet cokes etc, but i found they just werent satisfying. Soooo i tried herbal teas and they are fantastic and i can get them for 29p a box of 20 in b&m bargains theres dettox vitality and digestion and they all have a lovely sweetish licoricey hint to them and you can drink them hot or ice cold!!! No bloating, caffeine free, and some are even organic!!! Enjoy!!!

 

[Seanin]

I just had to post here as I'm also guilty of falling foul when it comes to the fizzy drinks, both diet and otherwise. Having gained 2 stone over the last year or so, I know it's mainly down to the fact that I stopped drinking herbal teas and began pumping myself full of sugary coffee, tea and all manner of fizzy juices. I found cans of Lucozade especially addictive, but tried switching to Sprite Zero etc thinking it would be healthier. Wrong.

In my own experience, it's definitely these drinks that make you 'crave' other foods - as a previous poster said, they make a promise they can't deliver and before you know it, you'd go through a brick wall for a proper sugar fix. I also absolutely hate artificial sweeteners in general and can't stand them in my hot drinks - which is why I'm going to return to my trusty herbal teas.

I know they have an acquired taste - they're certainly not for everyone - but by gum, they've never failed me in the past when losing weight. They count as your daily water intake which is fantastic, and I also find they're a perfect way to round off a meal and stave off that 'Hmm, I want something sweet now' feeling. Mint teas are especially good for this and they are amazing for digestion; I've suffered from IBS for some time now, and I always found that when I was drinking a mug of peppermint tea after each meal, I had no trouble at all.

Most people have heard of green tea, it's pretty famous for the healthy benefits it offers, but if the other teas have an acquired taste then this one is the Marmite of herbal beverages. It comes in all sorts of forms - with camomile, lemon, all manner of fruits, you name it - and then you have your bog standard plain green tea. Now, this stuff really does boost weight gain and help improve your metabolism, but it's really not to everyone's taste and there's no point in guzzling something you don't enjoy, health benefits or not. It eventually begins to feel like a punishment rather than an aid if you don't like it.

I hate to say it, as I've never been a fan, but I have found that good old fashioned water is genuinely the best way forward. I'm getting used to drinking pints of water throughout the day, and after only two days, I'm already enjoying it. It does stop cravings, big time - and I have oodles of energy that seem to have sprouted out of thin air.

As for the diet fizzy drinks...I think I'll be leaving those behind for good. I feel like I'm cheating myself with those things - all that hard work, training myself into eating super healthy food, only to turn around and gulp down a canful of processed synthetic sugars and God only knows what else (taurine? what is that and why would I want it in my system??).

 

[katy82]

you must look up aspartine poisoning-from ex 6-8l day diet coke drinker

Yes since I was 14 I have drunk 6-8 litres of diet coke per day in addition to tea, water, juice etc. I stopped drinking it 4 months ago, my energy has increased, my erm toilet trips are less unpridictable, I no longer feel desperate thirst and am fuller for longer. I never thought that diet coke was having such an affect on my body (especially as I have chronic fatigue syndrome/m.e) but I can assure you that for me, ditching diet coke is easier than u think. I always had a few bottles in the car, my handbag, at friends houses, stocks in my fridge when offers were on! I would rather have the calories of fat coke if there was no other drink available, I had the choice at lattitude few weeks ago and the fat coke lasted me three days (500ml) alongside water and tea as I didnt have the desperate thirst that diet coke gave me x please pm me if u want anymore info as im blabbering now!! x

 

[keeleyd]

On sw you can have unlimited diet drinks but I guess to much will affect your energy and weight levels.

 

[redmel]

On the Dukan diet it advocates using diet drinks (squash/fizzy) to curb sweet cravings, it claims that it doesn't affect weightloss at all! and in all fairness, everyone I know who has followed Dukan has used these drinks and have had fantastic losses.

I think the problem comes when (as someone above said) your body expects a sugar hit and doesn't get one, you then crave further sugary and sweet things.....

As a teenager I drank gallons of fizzy drinks, both diet and full sugar, and was never overweight...I only became overweight after having children and at that time I couldn't afford luxuries like coke, my weight was gained by constant snacking on cheap junk food.

 

[Elementhia]

hmm im a big diet coke junkie. I buy big 2Lx4 packs and generally get through at least one of those a week if not more. I tend to have a big bottle under my desk at work.

So far, i have been of the thought...'without diet coke, i'd be drinking wine. One has 0 calories, the other has 400 calories. I am a smoker. I'm not concerned about chemicals being slightly unhealthy for me or something not being 100% good for me. I just want to lose my fat. Diet coke helps keep me feeling happy and not so deprived.'

I genuinely do think that diet coke (never full fat) stops me from eating other crap - and it doesn't send me into a sugar rush im really very good.

But with all this research i just dont know?

Id definately say I was addicted. I know what addiction feels like as a smoker, and yes I will get in my car at 11pm and drive somewhere to buy coke when I dont have any. This is obviously not good. But its nowhere near the cigarette craving.

Mayyybe next week after my SW weigh in I will try giving it up for a week and present you guys with a completely subjective case control study on my experiences

Tbh im hoping it doesn't make much difference as I really enjoy diet coke and having given up everything else I love it seems cruel to encourage people to give up something completely calorie free without some real hard evidence based studies.

 

[Snakes and ladders]

My experience is purely anecdotal, but whenever I drink diet Coke (I get a craving every 2 months or so) I get really hungry afterwards and end up eating hundreds of calories of junk. Obviously this may not be because of the coke, but it does feel that way.

After last time I decided to stay away from it. I hope that you can continue to enjoy it though with no ill effects!

 

[Katesands8]

There was an article today in the Daily Mail about a lady who drank loads of diet coke and gained 3 st over a period of time!
I personally think those people who think they may not be affected by diet drinks should look up the side effects of the artificial sweeteners and see if they actually have any of them! Then they should go cold turkey for 3 weeks and see what their bodies go through to get "clean". I personally thought I was A) suffering from pneumonia and/or B) about to die!
For those that "don't gain weight" well maybe they just have a faster metabolism, your metabolism does change with age and having babies! So just because you drank it when you were younger with no side effects doesn't mean it's not having an effect now!
I rarely have it now only in restaurants where it's cheaper to have unlimited drinks than buy drinks as you go along! so it's maybe 1 every couple of months.
I generally have lime and soda or just sparkling water! My skin has been thanking me for months ~ as have my kidneys lol, not sure about the old mans prostate I appear to have aquired in the wee small hours lol.
For the children I don't buy any diet drinks they get full sugar as the artificial sweeteners are less!
Don't get me started on toothkind juices for babies! It's poison to a system not made to handle it! No i'm not a health nut ~ just very realistic why poison your loved ones?

 

[Elementhia]

can you find the link to the article? was it online?

 

[Aymz]

argh, just wrote a whole post but internet stopped working. Basically, I love diet coke and you could say I am addicted. When I drink it I don't find that I eat more and infact it does curb my cravings for sugar. However, I tried to cut it out (managed about 2 and a half weeks) and found that I slept better and had fewer headaches. But now I'm back on it although not drinking anywhere near as much.

 

[Katesands8]

It was in the actual paper Elementhia I will try and find it for you and post it!
Aymz it probably takes 3/4 weeks to actually get over it! I would say yes I was addicted ( i never thought I was whilst drinking it!) but only because of what I went through when the hypno made me not want it! It was awful, sweats, shakes, awful awful headaches. I really though at one point I was going to have a heart attack and die or just die (and believe me at it's worst I would have been grateful!). I never want to experience anything like that again.
I was like a lot of people oh I'm not addicted oh it doesn't make me crave things! But if you actually look at what you might eat at the same time or within an hour, you can bet it's not a carrot stick lol.
I'm not being holier than thou, I know better, so I apologise if that's what comes across, it's still in the house but the others don't drink it like I used to in any way shape or form I drink sparkling water (I'm now an expert on bubble size and taste (yes I'm addicted to water now!))
I would have coffee with my breakfast then move onto diet coke, that would be it for the day.
Going out for lunch where it's "unlimited" I would have 3 or 4 glasses. Now if we go I fill up the glass with ice before I even put the diet coke in!
But we go to a different place and a PINT of lime and soda is 40p so even if I was to have 6 pints I wouldn't spend the same as the coke cost lol.
Right I will away to find the link!
Be back later