I’m not a big soda drinker at all - I basically never drink it - but I recently picked up a 12-pack of coke zero after trying one and liking it. I figure if I need the indulgence, I might as well drink a calorie-free one.
It makes me hungry, in a low-level and artificial way. I tried having one with a meal that would have normally left me sated, and I was left with a lingering, low-level hunger after drinking the soda, which made me feel like I should eat more even though I knew I didn’t need to. I had one another day when I was merely thirsty and craving something a little sweet, and it left me with a feeling of snack-level hunger that I didn’t have before.
My theory is that the fake sugar is doing something with your body that makes your body think it’s had real sugar, so your body goes into “eat” mode even though you haven’t actually eaten sugar. Or something like that.
I bet they make you fat by increasing hunger in a tricky way.
I have been off of aspartame for over 3 weeks now. I have not noticed a reduction in my snacking or hunger. Of course, I had been drinking diet cola for many many years at a large intake level.
I didn’t stop due to the new studies, but now that they are out I’ll be watching to see if losing weight becomes easier for me.
You know, I wonder about this. The theory is that your body’s conditioned to think sweet = sugar and so you have an insulin response in reaction to the diet soda. However, I’ve been drinking diet sodas for 25 years and never take in liquid sugar*. You would think my body would’ve learned by now to disassociate sweet drinks with sugar intake.
In fact, when I do on the very rare occasion drink something sweet, it makes me kinda shakey. Hmmm…
No one probably wants to hear this, but this was one of the major ideas behind Dr. Atkins’ diet strategy. Sugar makes you crave sugar and so does the sweetness of fake sugar.
Eliminating sugar, even fake sugar (at least in the earliest stages of his diet plan) reduces the feelings of hunger and the urge to snack.
I don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to drinks* and I will continue to drink diet stuff even though anecdotally it does make me hungrier. At least it’s the one place I don’t take in calories since I eat for non-hunger reasons and that won’t change.
*I hate water (AND when I am forced to drink it, it makes me hungrier too). I don’t like sugared sodas except very occasionally. Fruit juice is basically sugar water. I don’t like flavored water that doesn’t have some sort of sweetness (artificial) to it.
Recently I have been on a “get healthy” kick and have decided to cut out the diet soda habit. I have gone from drinking two or three 12-oz bottles of Diet Mt. Dew daily at work to replacing that with only water. At home, I have been drinking Fresca…it’s very refreshing! But alas, it is also a diet soda and contains Nutra Sweet, which I want to eliminate. I will miss Fresca unless there is a “real sugar” variant of it out there.
I am not sure if it will make any difference, but I have been thinking alot lately about chemicals I put in my body and it just doesn’t seem like NutraSweet/aspartame is something beneficial to my health.
I do agree that the less sweets you eat the less you crave them. I was very bad over the Christmas holidays, eating cookies, cakes, candy and pies like there was no tomorrow! But over the last 30 days I have all but eliminated sweets from my diet (again) and I am finding I do not crave them. I think not having the sweetness of a diet drink also helps that.
Now, having a Hershey’s kiss or two every once in awhile turns into a real treat instead of something that satisfies a desperate craving.
This is odd, but whenever I make an attempt to lose a few pounds, I switch to regular soda. I generally prefer diet (because of taste) but I realized that I can’t sit around and drink tons of regular because it fills me up.
So, I will have a can of Dr. Pepper with my lunch, and I eat less. So…150 calories instead of possibly another 300-400 or so.
I don’t know if diet soda specifically makes me hungry, or if it just induces cravings. I cannot drink a diet soda without wanting something salty. I don’t have this problem with regular soda (another reason may be that it is so sweet that my brain equates it with eating a cookie or something).
Fella bilong missus flodnak will not drink Coke Light (European equivalent of Diet Coke) because he says it makes him hungry, but loves Coke Zero because he says it doesn’t have the same effect. I don’t get that from either version but prefer the taste of Coke Light. Your Body Chemistry May Vary.
I’ve never noticed this effect, and I drink a lot of diet soda. I only ever drink sugared soda if there’s no alternative at all – even though I don’t much care for tap water, I prefer it to sugary soda.
Does the body really release digestive chemicals (like insulin) in response to the taste of the food?
I have a question, though- where does Splenda fall in all this? Because I thought I’d been doing so well, switching to decaf iced tea sweetened with Splenda instead of sugary soda.
A friend of mine has done really well with Atkins, particularly with respect to cravings and bingeing. As soon as she allows sugar in her diet, she goes haywire again. Her moods and emotions become more volatile as well.
This person has a family history of alcoholism, but is not herself an alcoholic - I can’t help but wonder if some people don’t have a strong reaction to sugar. Maybe there’s a genetic component?
I’ve never noticed this phenomena and I’ve always gravitated toward Diet Coke over regular sodas. But, to each his own and all that. It’d be interesting to learn more about how the participants were selected and how they’re treating their weight issues. From what I understand, there are many types of overeating behaviors - true binge behaviors, addictive eating, boredom eating, eating the wrong stuff and too much out of pure ignorance, etc. I wonder how much of the psychology behind being overweight factors into the diet soda = diet sabotage theory.
Thought I should add- the last time I engaged in a serious weight loss attempt, I was a huge soda junkie at the time. I switched to Diet Dr. Pepper, made better food choices and exercised (almost) daily. And I lost 15 pounds. I didn’t personally notice any difference in my hunger or eating patterns.
