Water certainly is full of chemicals! First of all, it’s a chemical itself, and unless you’re drinking industrial grade distilled water, it’s going to have all sorts of minerals and various gasses and other things dissolved in it. All of which, get this, are chemicals. Most of them are harmless, but whatever.
As a somewhat skinny guy who drinks sodas only rarely (but never diet), I agree that it is no one else’s fucking business if someone orders a diet beverage, and to make little snide comments is rude as hell. I’ve known too many people (fat and thin) who seem to genuinely like the taste of diet drinks. De gustibus non est disputandum.
However.
It does get me when people eat low-fat or diet or whatever, and then use that as an excuse to consume something even more unhealthy. Net benefit = zero, or less than zero.
You’re not going to lose weight by drinking diet coke when you also use that to justify supersizing your fries.
I guess I just think about it differently. Do calories become less potent as you get more of them? Sure, I may only weigh 5 lbs more if I have regular Coke all the time instead of Diet Coke. But I feel better off being 5 lbs lighter. Even an obese person may enjoy a similarly slight decrease in weight more than they enjoy regular Coke. Now, maybe if I *hated * Diet Coke, my quality of life would be better if I had the regular stuff and were 5 lbs heavier. But I love the stuff!
Now, if someone gets Diet Coke as an excuse to splurge elsewhere, it all depends on the math. Maybe the total calorie load is more if they order dessert with a Diet Coke as opposed to no dessert and regular Coke. Or maybe the two choices are exactly the same–they just want the dessert more than the regular Coke.
Amen! The world chemical has been so distorted by pop media and advertising. And it’s not like artificially created chemicals are all bad for you and all naturally produced chemicals are benificial or harmless.
That’s my thinking exactly.
Also, I find it sad that some people delude themselves about the benefit of diet coke with a 1000+ calorie meal. Rearranging chairs isn’t quite the right analogy in this case. It’s more like leaning off the side of the Titanic with a hair dryer aimed at the approaching iceberg. Yeah, you can melt some of it, and technically the iceberg is smaller now, but you clearly failed to grasp a fundamental concept somewhere along the way.
The trap is that people feel that they “saved” some caloric intake by drinking the diet coke, and now can splurge on other stuff they like better. That’s not really how it works. You can either count all calories, or don’t bother at all. There is no safe middleground, because if you only count some calories, you are setting yourself up for discouragement and failure. Likely soon to be followed with complaints about how counting calories won’t work for you. And if that happens, you’re screwed. Counting calories will work for virtually anyone, but half-assing it will reduce the potential effectiveness of the approach.
Witness stories about people putting nuts on their burgers. Same thing. It screams ignorance, which is what raises the eyebrows of the observers.
I sympathise with the OP and think the statement
used to apply solely to smokers. You could see the anti-smoking police come alive when a smoker foolishly broke cover in their presence. He can’t deny he’s a smoker he’s holding a cigarette. So as a former “butt brother”, shall we say, I know how petty and arbitrary it can all seem.
I recall reading some time ago that the Coke “new formula” fiasco some years ago resulted from secret taste tests undertaken by Coke that showed that in blind tests even “full strength” drinkers preferred the taste of Diet. The new recipe was simply designed to taste more like Diet Coke.
OK, you got me on a technicality. 
Can we concede that water is good for you, and probably better than soda, diet or otherwise?
Scarlett, who would chug regular Coke by the gallon if the calories and caffeine did not conspire against her
I drink diet coke with heavy meals sometimes, too. For one thing, I like the taste. For another, although it doesn’t save me a lot of calories if I’m at home (meals at home are a lot healthier and smaller than meals out), if I’m in a restaurant, it’ll save me a ton. Have you seen the size of the sodas they serve in American restaurants?? They’re huge, and most come with free refills. I could probably save myself an additional 500 calories at least just by drinking diet soda.
And yeah, I know - I’m personally responsible for how much soda I consume, but it sure is easier to just make it diet in the first place so I don’t have to worry about it.
I gotta disagree with this. While I’m not particularly overweight, when I do find myself creeping up there, just making a small change to my diet will slow, halt or reverse the weight gain process. Although it could be called “half-assed,” I think half-assed calorie counting is better than not counting at all. Yeah, it’ll reduce the potential effectiveness, but it’ll still be somewhat effective, even if it won’t work as well or as fast as jumping in with both feet. Plus, not everyone can just make huge, sudden changes to their diet. Substituting diet coke for regular could be a legitimate change that might make a big difference to someone.
For example, let’s say you have someone taking in 2,200 calories per day. Included in that daily intake is one can of regular soda, which amounts to about 150 calories. If they absolutely can’t part with their soda, but switch that can for diet, they eliminate 150 empty calories from their diet per day. It’s not a big change, but it’s painless (unless the person hates diet - then they’re screwed), and it does make a difference. If they maintain their regular eating habits sans regular coke, they will be taking in 1,050 calories less per week. To burn a pound of fat, you need to get rid of approximately 3,500 calories. So, although that person would be losing far less than a pound per week, they’d still be losing weight, however slowly, which is still a change for the positive. It’d take them about 3.3 weeks to lose that pound of fat, but losing even that little weight steadily throughout the year could amount to a 15 pound weight loss over the year, which, depending upon their current weight, might be significant. I guess it depends upon perspective and how much that person needs to lose in the first place.
And nuts on a burger??? I’ve never heard of that one. That’s crazy, and…just…ewww!!!
They’re usually about 16 ounces in my experience, and half of that is ice. Maybe not at those gluttony places like Claim Jumper, but then a dinner there could easily feed 2 people; it has to be thousands and thousands of calories. If you’re eating at places like that, the diet Coke ain’t gonna save you.
But be fair - we’re not talking about people who take in 2,200 calories a day, we’re talking about people who take in 2,200 calories in ONE MEAL, and then order a diet Coke. Besides, your scenario really sounds like it’s on the negligible side. A pound in 3 weeks? People’s weight fluctuates more than that just from one day to the next. It would take so little to tip the scales the other way, I just can’t see how you could possibly acheive any long-term results from that.
Eh, you’re probably right. Especially being a woman, my weight can fluctuate up to four pounds at certain times of the month. However, reducing my daily caloric intake by as little as 200 - 250 calories helped me lose nearly 20 pounds one year, though I admit it was difficult and sometimes kind of disappointing because it came off so slowly, but I recognized that I’d only be able to stick with something that allowed me to make small, less-noticable changes to my diet. Everyone’s different and everyone’s body responds differently to certain diets. My body happens to respond well to calorie cutting, but other people might find it too cumbersome to count calories and would experience more success with another method, such as low-carb. Either way, as long as it makes you healthier (and I don’t think being thin is necessarily synonymous with health), what does it matter?
Random Interjection: Oh, and though I DO love the taste of Diet Coke, one of my friends tried to tell me that she couldn’t tell the difference between regular Coke and Diet. Puleez! She’s totally fooling herself. I feel better now that I have said that. 
Hey, I’d be ecstatic if I lost 20 pounds in one year. And for the record (since I fear I came on too strong in this thread), I don’t think there’s anything wrong with switching to Diet Coke, if that floats your boat. Just so long as one doesn’t pretend that it justifies having that extra hot-fudge sundae. 
[bolding mine]
Sixty-odd posts go by, and nobody’s noticed this yet?
When my husband was a young man, he lost over 80 pounds in about six months.
How? By switching from regular soft drinks to diet.
Of course, he drank a scary amount of soda in the first place (1-2 thousand calories a day), so his results are, as the diet commercials would say, “not typical.”
Until I started doing Atkins I drank Diet soda with my meals. And without them also.
My logic was always hey if I am going to spend 600 calories a day, (4 cokes) I will drink diet and then spend the calories on something I really like. So yeah I would have a Big Mac, fries, and a Diet Coke.
When I read Dr. Atkins book he mentioned that the sweetener in most diet drinks, aspartame, can make some people hungry. This would describe me to a T. I would not be very hungry, my wife would tell me dinner would be in 20 minutes so I would have a Diet Coke. By the time dinner was served, I was starving.
So even though the DC had no calories it promoted me to eat more often. Not a good thing if you are trying to lose weight.
The other problem with Diet Coke is I believe that the carbonation tends to stretch your stomach and require more food to then feel “full”.
Since I have been on Atkins I have had a few DCs when nothing else was available, and have cut way back on my carbonated drinks. Most of the time I have ice water, or iced tea. I eat much less food now then I did. Oh and I have lost 55 Lbs since January.
Absolutely spot on. Last September I decided to make a concerted effort to change at least ONE thing about my eating habits: I’d switch from regular to diet sodas. (Keep in mind that I drink a lot. I also eat a lot, and am obese. Go figure.) It was hard at first, make no mistake. 35+ years of drinking regular soda creates some strong preferences in a gal, and in comparison diet soda has always tasted like licking a metal pole to me.
Anyway, over the past year I didn’t really make any other changes in my diet, and indeed sometimes I’d have a regular coke now and then (with pizza, for example, or if I had McDonald’s; for me, the Coke is part of the enjoyment of those meals! :D).
End result? Loss of fifteen pounds over the last year, without doing a damn thing differently except for the soda switch. Losing the weight perked me up and convinced me to make more changes. For many of us, big changes are too overwhelming, while tiny ones are attainable – and successes help spur on further improvements.
So all those smug folks watching me in the supermarket checkout line with my diet soda bottles thinking “what a fucking pathetic delusional fatty!” can bite me. Hard.
BTW, my switch was made easier by Pepsi coming out with the ultra faboo Diet Pepsi Vanilla, a nectar that delights me inutterably. I still think Coke is the best drink in the universe, don’t get me wrong. But Diet Pepsi Vanilla, Diet Pepsi Twist, Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Orange Slice, and Diet Coke (but only without Caffeine – yes, I can tell the difference!) are all pretty good substitutes.
Let me chime in with the folks that say that switching to diet soft drinks can make a difference. By switching from regular Coke to Diet Coke, I lost 20 pounds in about 6 months. I made no other change in my diet.
I will qualify that with a couple of disclaimers, however. I didn’t tell myself that I could have a little more of whatever because I was drinking Diet Coke – my diet was otherwise unchanged. And I drink a lot of cola – 2 liters in an evening is not unusual.
I didn’t like the taste at first, but I quickly adjusted to the point that regular soft drinks now taste much too sweet to me. (I did drink regular Coke on a recent trip overseas since Diet Coke was hard to find. I still thought it was too sweet, but since they [overseas] sweeten with actual sugar instead of corn sweetener, it wasn’t too bad.)
Beleive it or not- they really taste the same. :dubious: I can hear your doubt these many miles away.
But if you switch 100% to diet- and ONLY diet- fro about a month- the “sugar” soda will taste strange, and the diet stuff will taste normal. Really. 
Ugh! Not that I don’t believe you, but I can’t even get through one diet Coke, much less a month of it. It honestly tastes horrible to me. That’s just me, though.