How much will drinking Diet Pepsi effect my Diet?

Factual Questions
1

Seriously here folks…I ballooned to about 250 pounds about 2 years ago. Doc told me to loose 60 pounds…I lost 50 pounds, and have rebounded back to about 225. I can’t seem to loose that 20 pounds again. I’m eating well, and exercise as often as I can (3 times a week)

One thing I have not given up since quitting the sauce is diet pepsi.

How bad it is for me?

What are good alternatives?

Am I SOL if I decide to continue drinking it*?

Does Caffeine free make any diff?

*please no diet cola bashers…I know you are out there [sup]I see you[/sup] I’m trying to wither find a good alternative to DP…

2

I don’t understand your question. Surely you don’t think that switching from Diet Pepsi to Regular Pepsi will help you lose weight, do you?

3

It has zero calories. It adds no calories to your daily diet. It’s like drinking water – maybe better than water, since the caffeine can give you slight boost and burn a trace more calories indirectly.

You should never drink any calories. Get all your calories from food.

For your general health, some will advise you to drink water instead, since there are chemicals and acid in sodas that trigger deabte about their effects on your body (catcht that? you should be more interested in skipping the diet soda to avoid the debate, because the debate about diet soda’s effect on health might be painful!)

4

Caffeine is a diuretic (makes you urinate more). I’ve heard that this is bad for dieters, but never understood why.

5

There were quite a few studies showing that diet pop was correlated with more weight gain than non-diet pop but that pop is overall correlated with weight gain. I don’t think they’ve pinned out exactly why or how but there’s different theories. Anyway, the news is that pop is a bad deal.

OTOH, milk was positively associated with weight loss. Again, varying theories about that, including that the calcium that’s obtained from dairy somehow has to do with regulating metabolizing fat or not. I’m a lifelong milk drinker and haven’t had any major weight issues. In my case, I often drink chocolat milk, and I think that cuts down the desire to eat other sweets. Plus, milk is filling on its own so that might have something to do with it. In fact, maybe that’s why diet pop doesn’t help people lose weight; it doesn’t really fill you up so you eat more food.

However, if you can’t hack milk, try the herbal teas - there’s sooo many different flavours you’re sure to find a few that you like and you can make iced tea out of anything if you don’t want to drink hot teas; just brew the tea stronger and chill it.

If plain water bores you, try squeezing a bit of lemon, lime, or orange juice in it.

6

Helpful hint:

Body weight X 12 = Calories per day to maintain weight.

It’s a generall rule, but at 220 pounds if you 2640 calories per day, you’ll pretty much hover near your body weight. To lose weight, you need to create a deficit. Eat less to lower the 2640, or exercise more to burn more than 2640.

It is very possible to eat ‘right’ and hover at 220 lbs. 2600 calories is easy to hit every day. Food is abundant. You should really focus on your caloric intake and see if you can drop it to 1800-2000 every day. You should see 1.5 to 2lbs come off per week.

7

[QUOTE=Keeve]
Caffeine is a diuretic (makes you urinate more). I’ve heard that this is bad for dieters, but never understood why.
[/QUOTE]

Incdentally, the myth about coffee, tea and soda causing dehydration (because of the caffeine) is just that – a myth. The water content of such beverages far far outweighs any diuretic action caused by the caffeine.

In answer to the OP, drinking Diet Pepsi contributes negligible calories to your diet (less than 1 calorie per can IIRC). There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there on this topic, e.g. a quick Googling gave this page which is laughably inaccurate (high fructose corn syrup in diet cola? Er, no!). Basically, ignore the diet soda intake and concentrate on what you’re actually eating. All you have to do to lose weight is use more calories than you consume. That’s it. No magic, no wacky diet plans. Less in, more out. Easy as that.

(Personally, about the only things I drink through the day are tea and water. I find cola to be not at all refreshing and I hate the furry feeling it leaves on my teeth. I can feel the acid eroding the enamel and it grosses me out!)

8

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
There were quite a few studies showing that diet pop was correlated with more weight gain than non-diet pop but that pop is overall correlated with weight gain. I don’t think they’ve pinned out exactly why or how but there’s different theories. Anyway, the news is that pop is a bad deal.
…
[/QUOTE]

Largely in here to agree with QG here. I’ve heard varying theories about why “diet” sodas are no better for losing weight than regular sodas. Being in excellent shape myself, I often get asked about how to get in shape. On top of basic exercise and diet advise, one of the first things I always say is, if you drink sodas, even diets, if you give them up and change nothing else, you will see a difference, and they invariably do.

As for caffine, it is a mixed blessing. It is a metabolism booster, which means you’ll burn more calories at rest, but being a diuretic, means you dehydrate. Water is great for anyone trying to lose weight, not only because it’s healthy, but it also helps curb an appetite; that is, sometimes one feels hungry when he just needs to have a glass of water. My suggestion still, is minimize caffine because of the diuretic side effects, even if it is a metabolism booster. I believe you can achieve comparable results with sufficient exercise.

Also in agreeance with QG, when I largely cut sodas out (I still have one on occasion), I found water, sparkling water, and tea with some lemon or other juice to sufficient for the “sweet drink” craving.

If you can’t bear to switch to water or tea or the like, I still think you’re better off going with more natural drinks like juices, provided they don’t have added sugar. At least if its a few extra calories, you can always run a little more; it’s really the extra chemicals in soda that do the real damage, I think.

9

additional thought, cont’d (dang edit limits):

It is very possible to eat ‘right’ and hover at 220 lbs. 2600 calories is easy to hit every day. Food is abundant. You should really focus on your caloric intake and see if you can drop it to 1800-2000 every day. You should see 1.5 to 2lbs come off per week.

And then you don’t ‘come off your diet’. I don’t understand the logic here. Your diet is forever. 2000-2200 calories is the am’t of calories, on average, you should consume everyday, if you are a male of average height.

There are numerous factors that a doc and nutritionist should work on with you, but this is the foundation. We are all on diets. A diet never ends, or we’d starve. If you ended something and gained weight, what you ended was a run of eating better/less.

10

[QUOTE=Blaster Master]

Also in agreeance with QG, when I largely cut sodas out (I still have one on occasion), I found water, sparkling water, and tea with some lemon or other juice to sufficient for the “sweet drink” craving.

If you can’t bear to switch to water or tea or the like, I still think you’re better off going with more natural drinks like juices, provided they don’t have added sugar. At least if its a few extra calories, you can always run a little more; it’s really the extra chemicals in soda that do the real damage, I think.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with you on water and sparkling water, but what are these magical “extra chemicals” you talk of? The only things in diet soda that are not in regular soda are artifical sweeteners. These are present in such small amounts as to have negligible energy content. They cannot contribute to weight gain.

I’d also caution against consuming too much fruit juice. Sure, the odd glass is fine, but replacing a several-cans-a-day soda habit with OJ would wreck any chance of losing weight. Orange juice contains slightly more calories than standard Coca-Cola (~45 cal / 100ml compared with 41 cal / 100ml for Coke). It doesn’t matter whether the sugar is “natural” or added, it still contains a lot of calories!

Edit: you might find this article useful too: http://health.uk.msn.com/healthencyclopaedia/features/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4628914

11

Recent research showed that soup before a meal tricks the stomach into thinking it’s full and so you eat less of the main meal. They took obese kids and the group given soup took on average 17% less of the serve-yourself main meal afterwards.

The same ‘tip’ was given in a BBC series recently and replicated in the show.

I’m trying to incorporate that trick into my own dieting.

This doesn’t work for any liquid though. The body won’t try and digest a liquid so tea, coffee, coke, water etc goes straight through.

12

I lost nearly 55 pounds several years ago and have kept the weight off since - so I have some personal experience in this.

I drank diet soda every day during my weight loss period, and I still drink diet soda nearly every day. I like how it tastes and I like how caffeine makes me feel. I really don’t think its a serious problem for people trying to lose weight. I did however notice that when I drink diet soda on its own, between feeding times, that it tends to make me crave either sweets or salts. I’ve read somewhere that aspartame can induce cravings for sweets but I don’t know if there is any science to back up that claim. My advice is to keep an eye on this, if drinking diet soda makes you crave snacks to go with it then obviously you may consider cutting it out, or only drinking it with healthy meals.

I also don’t want to turn this into an argument thread but the advice that “all you have to do is burn more calories than you consume” to lose weight is a gross simplification of how weight loss and weight gain work in the human body. Seeing as you are overweight and that you have probably (like me) struggled with it your whole life, you don’t really need me to tell you how misleading statements like that can be. Human metabolism is incredibly complex, and dozens of independent and interrelated factors contribute to how, why, and when the body burns or stores fat. I suggest watching the Frontline documentary Fat: What No One is Telling You, to hear the nation’s top physicians discuss just how complex weight gain and loss are in the human body. Calorie restriction is an important part of losing weight, but for successful permanant weight loss it only one one of many factors you need to address.

13

Ditto on the weight gain from diet pop. Some people speculated it subconsciously gives you the go-ahead to eat other food that’ll make you fat.

Count calories and carbs and exercise. It works for almost everyone.

14

There have been a couple times in my life when I’ve needed to lose weight. What has worked for me? Walking. Simple as that. Of course, I control my diet, too, but not so much that I feel starved or deprived.

Just start by going out 2 or 3 times a day and walk around the block. 5 minutes will do to start. Don’t think of this as “going out to exercise” because it then just becomes a burden. “I’m just going to walk around the block.” Gradually increase the distance you walk. Maybe you only increase the distance you walk on one of the walks you do a day and keep the others short. Within a couple of months, you’ll find that your long walks are up to miles, and you’ll miss it if you don’t get a chance to walk that day.

I’m currently in one of those phases where I needed to lose weight. I started about 2.5 months ago just walking once around our buildings in the morning and in the afternoons. After dinner I would go for a longer walk with my wife (to the local store, or once around the park a few blocks away from our house). I started out with very short distances (I had no stamina). After gradually increasing my distance, last night, I walked 4 miles in an hour and ten minutes (and found 2 geocaches while I was at it). :slight_smile:

Just my 2 cents,
J.

15

About 6 months ago I switched from sweetening my coffee with sugar to Splenda and replaced my soda pop I drank with a diet one. I haven’t started an exercise program yet, but I will very soon. But just with that change alone, I have lost several pounds and I am noticeably thinner around the waist. I’ve gone from 195 pounds to 185.

16

[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
I also don’t want to turn this into an argument thread but the advice that “all you have to do is burn more calories than you consume” to lose weight is a gross simplification of how weight loss and weight gain work in the human body. … Calorie restriction is an important part of losing weight, but for successful permanant weight loss it only one one of many factors you need to address.
[/QUOTE]

I also don’t want this to turn into an argument, but it is a simple scientific fact that if you consume fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. Sure, there are other factors at work, but your body cannot create bulk out of nothing.

Case in point: at the beginning of the year I gave up using my car for commuting, and instead I travel 15 miles a day by bike. I noticed my weight dropping within a week or two (and I don’t have much weight to spare), until I adjusted my diet to provide extra energy to compensate. I now eat ~400 calories per day more than I did when I was essentially sedentary during the working week, and my weight is stable again.

17

One of the bad things I’ve heard about diet soda is that it supposedly triggers a craving for carbs, compelling you to to go to a vending machine and buy a bag of chips, but I have never noticed that, and diet soda is the only kind of soda I drink.

18

Short term, metabolism matters. Your body can short-term address plumetting calories, but not long term.

Long term, it’s fuel in vs. fuel out. Period.

Most people underestimate their caloric intake.

Heavier people have FASTER metabolism, not slower.

Cutting calories and adding exercise works. The inherent problem is not the math or science…the inherent problem is that very few people know how to eat to satisfy their hunger AND keep cals to the right level.

Most people get cravings and hunger that they cannot avoid. Let’s be realistic: what are the odds one can be an out of shape, overweight dieting train wreck, and then all of a sudden be a nutritionist, a good athlete AND all of a sudden be so self absorbed with their appearance that they can be lean and mean permanently? The odds are slim.

The last part, being self absorbed with one’s own beauty, needs to have a powerful mechanism internally to gaurantee success, and if it were there in the first place, it’s unlikely one would have gotten to be an out of shape person at all.

19

It’s more or less harmless. Yes, there are better things, but diet soda is pretty damn harmless as these things go.

20

[QUOTE=Philster]

Most people get cravings and hunger that they cannot avoid.
[/quote]

Right. Which is why it’s very helpful to find foods that will fill up up easily and are low in calories. You don’t have to starve to lose weight!

I bought myself Dr. Shapiro’s Picture Perfect Weight Loss book because I think it’s so cool to see visual images of how some foods have tons more calories than others.

But it doesn’t have to be ‘self absorbed with one’s beauty’. It can be much smarter, llike ‘concerned for one’s health’ or ‘wanting to feel better and move more easily’. It’s not about vanity, necessarily. In fact, it shouldn’t be, because I don’t think that’s a strong enough motivator. But if you’re facing a sickly middle age or old age, suddenly taking care of yourself seems like a pretty good idea.