Diet Soda

[ajerone]

The only reason I would avoid diet soda on a cut is because i try to limit my intake of artificial sugar. between my protein, pre workouts, and BCAA drinks, i figure i take in a ton of artificial sugar. i don't think there is any dietary affect, other than potential bloating due to the CO2 which some people complain about. i think that affects everyone differently, personally it doesn't affect me much.

[haynstyle]

OP may be on to something here. Most dietitians no longer recommend diet soda because diet soda increases HbA1c, is associated with metabolic syndrome, and aspartame stimulates the secretion of insulin.

Many people say they NEED the diet soda because they NEED the caffeine. Caffeine distrubs circadian cortisol levels for 24 hours after ingestion. If the western world would simply take care of their adrenals, there would be no need for caffeine. Caring for your adrenals using adaptogens such as holy basil, ginseng, ashwaganda, relora, maca, rhodiola, b-vitamins, vitamin c , and a good protein should do it. Also, wean off of soda/coffee and onto Green Tea (then caffeine free green tea) or Yerba mate decaff. If someone NEEDS caffeine its a simple indication of adrenal fatigue.

[wake989]

Thanks for all the replies

[JP83]

OP may be on to something here. Most dietitians no longer recommend diet soda because diet soda increases HbA1c, is associated with metabolic syndrome, and aspartame stimulates the secretion of insulin.

Many people say they NEED the diet soda because they NEED the caffeine. Caffeine distrubs circadian cortisol levels for 24 hours after ingestion. If the western world would simply take care of their adrenals, there would be no need for caffeine. Caring for your adrenals using adaptogens such as holy basil, ginseng, ashwaganda, relora, maca, rhodiola, b-vitamins, vitamin c , and a good protein should do it. Also, wean off of soda/coffee and onto Green Tea (then caffeine free green tea) or Yerba mate decaff. If someone NEEDS caffeine its a simple indication of adrenal fatigue.

Well said and very true

[lilcrate]

I used to be huge on diet soda and now drink almost nothing but water. I feel like it made a difference in fat loss and overall health. One reason being I was drinking a lot of water. The second reason being, one this site hates to consider because it believes calories are the end of all dieting, is I believe it is still content even though it is only 0 calories. It might be a hell of a lot better than soda and not that bad for you at all, but it is still content that needs to be digested/burned properly. This analogy is going to sound really stupid, but think about if I ate a bunch of paper all day, it is probably 0 calories, but is it good for nutrition? Probably not....

[Retrotiger]

I'll just use common sense, please don't flame/hate.

We exhale carbon dioxide right? And sodas are made out of carbonated water.

Why would you drink something you would exhale? Doesn't it mean that if you exhale something, your body doesn't want it in?

[shadar]

I'll just use common sense, please don't flame/hate.

We exhale carbon dioxide right? And sodas are made out of carbonated water.

Why would you drink something you would exhale? Doesn't it mean that if you exhale something, your body doesn't want it in?

....

OP may be on to something here. Most dietitians no longer recommend diet soda because diet soda increases HbA1c, is associated with metabolic syndrome, and aspartame stimulates the secretion of insulin.

Many people say they NEED the diet soda because they NEED the caffeine. Caffeine distrubs circadian cortisol levels for 24 hours after ingestion. If the western world would simply take care of their adrenals, there would be no need for caffeine. Caring for your adrenals using adaptogens such as holy basil, ginseng, ashwaganda, relora, maca, rhodiola, b-vitamins, vitamin c , and a good protein should do it. Also, wean off of soda/coffee and onto Green Tea (then caffeine free green tea) or Yerba mate decaff. If someone NEEDS caffeine its a simple indication of adrenal fatigue.

This thread has nothing to do with caffeine addiction though and there are caffeine free sodas which this would have zero applicability to. Not to mention many bodybuilders use caffeine pre-workout for energy and as part of stacks for cutting. Caffeine is a great tool when used wisely. Sure, if someone is intake huge quantities of caffeine daily just to try to feel something then that's not wise... but the amount of caffeine in soda is tiny compared to the doses we use for other purposes as bodybuilders.

If you're drinking diet soda, you're not drinking water.

That's the only negative I can think of.

Oh noes, lets not bring up the water debate again! Don't make me find that other thread again, I'll do it!

[Retrotiger]

Water debate! Water debate! WTF. Carbonated water is water. For Pete's sake. Come on. Think think think. Is Spaghetti made out of pasta?

[Daycrawler]

This^. Unless a person is worried about the caffeine content and if so, there's caffeine free diet soda. IMO it's awesome to keep sanity on a cut

Not true...........

Food while drinking carbonation slows down the metabolism of the food.

[Maxwell1995]

I wouldn't drink 4 a day. Even if it's diet it probably isn't 'healthy'. 1 or 2 a day would be fine I suppose, but maybe just not 4.

[shadar]

Not true...........

Food while drinking carbonation slows down the metabolism of the food.

Please rephrase, what you said doesn't make much sense.

Are you claiming it slows down the bodies metabolism or are you claiming it slows down the digestion of food?

I wouldn't drink 4 a day. Even if it's diet it probably isn't 'healthy'. 1 or 2 a day would be fine I suppose, but maybe just not 4.

Why? Do you have any reason for thinking this?

[Retrotiger]

Please rephrase, what you said doesn't make much sense.

Are you claiming it slows down the bodies metabolism or are you claiming it slows down the digestion of food?





Why? Do you have any reason for thinking this?

He's drinking carbonation shadar. That's a new company against Coca Cola. Carbonation Carbonated Drink.

[Daycrawler]

Please rephrase, what you said doesn't make much sense.

Are you claiming it slows down the bodies metabolism or are you claiming it slows down the digestion of food?





Why? Do you have any reason for thinking this?

Sorry. I meant when you drink anything with carbonation, it causes your body to digest the food slower than it would if you consumed say water or something with your food....

[shadar]

Sorry. I meant when you drink anything with carbonation, it causes your body to digest the food slower than it would if you consumed say water or something with your food....

Ok. Would that be a bad thing?

[Daycrawler]

Ok. Would that be a bad thing?

For weight loss yeah... Isn't that what he was talking about?

"Carbonation is theorized to actually bind to fat cells. This causes a slowing down of fat loss, thus making it much more difficult to lose weight. Furthermore, when you ingest a carbonated drink you are essentially ingesting air. It may taste tingly, but by ingesting air you bloat the gastrointestinal tract. This causes a slow down of digestion, which is another important factor in weight loss."

[fitnfirm]

I honestly do it man. And I don't even think twice about it. I drink it before the gym in the morning (while eating eggs), I drink it at work, when I get home, before bed. You name it.


The stuff is excellent. I mean don't get me wrong, I drink a TON of water as well. But Diet Mt. Dew is liquid gold.





-Spaz

I agree

[haynstyle]

....


This thread has nothing to do with caffeine addiction though and there are caffeine free sodas which this would have zero applicability to. Not to mention many bodybuilders use caffeine pre-workout for energy and as part of stacks for cutting. Caffeine is a great tool when used wisely. Sure, if someone is intake huge quantities of caffeine daily just to try to feel something then that's not wise... but the amount of caffeine in soda is tiny compared to the doses we use for other purposes as bodybuilders.

I know this thread has nothing to do with caffeine addiction, sorry just a little rant of mine I also know most bodybuilders use caffeine pre-workout (hell, I do!), but im talking about those individuals who NEED caffeine just to function throughout the day. Sorry, you dont NEED caffeine, you NEED to take care of your adrenals.

[shadar]

For weight loss yeah... Isn't that what he was talking about?

"Carbonation is theorized to actually bind to fat cells. This causes a slowing down of fat loss, thus making it much more difficult to lose weight. Furthermore, when you ingest a carbonated drink you are essentially ingesting air. It may taste tingly, but by ingesting air you bloat the gastrointestinal tract. This causes a slow down of digestion, which is another important factor in weight loss."

As far as I'm aware most people want to slow digestion when trying to lose weight. I've not studied it much, but wouldn't slowed digestion cause you to stay full longer and thus not want to eat as often?

Soluble fiber serves this purpose for example.

[fitfreak805]

For weight loss yeah... Isn't that what he was talking about?

"Carbonation is theorized to actually bind to fat cells. This causes a slowing down of fat loss, thus making it much more difficult to lose weight. Furthermore, when you ingest a carbonated drink you are essentially ingesting air. It may taste tingly, but by ingesting air you bloat the gastrointestinal tract. This causes a slow down of digestion, which is another important factor in weight loss."

you say carbonation is theroized to actually bind to fat cells, but i want to see a STUDY that proves that it does. i cant find one and i believe its because it simply isnt true. carbonation is nothing more then carbon gas infused with the liquid, and hasnt been shown to actually effect the metabolism in any way. if anything it could actually help with weight loss because the carbonation will help you feel fuller longer

[haynstyle]

I think the biggest factor here is the aspartame present in most diet sodas. I know some now use sucralose as the artificial sweetner however. At a national ADA meeting I attended a researcher at the University of Texas reported that aspartame stimulated a rise in insulin release. Given that insulin is an anabolic hormone, it stimulates adipose tissue deposition of fat, inhibits tyrosine kinase, and inhibits the breakdown of TG by lipase.....all of these increase weight! Last point about aspartame, once consumed it tuns into an alcohol which then also stimulates insulin release and depletes serotonin. The depletion of serotonin leads to carbohydrate cravings.

[shadar]

I think the biggest factor here is the aspartame present in most diet sodas. I know some now use sucralose as the artificial sweetner however. At a national ADA meeting I attended a researcher at the University of Texas reported that aspartame stimulated a rise in insulin release. Given that insulin is an anabolic hormone, it stimulates adipose tissue deposition of fat, inhibits tyrosine kinase, and inhibits the breakdown of TG by lipase.....all of these increase weight! Last point about aspartame, once consumed it tuns into an alcohol which then also stimulates insulin release and depletes serotonin. The depletion of serotonin leads to carbohydrate cravings.

This is really not true. While there have been a few studies which show aspartame does this, there have been more studies and more reliable ones at that which show the opposite.

Such as:

Pharmacol Toxicol. 1991 May;68(5):408-12. Related Articles, Links


Effect of aspartame and protein, administered in phenylalanine-equivalent doses, on plasma neutral amino acids, aspartate, insulin and glucose in man.

Moller SE.

Clinical Research Laboratory, St. Hans Hospital, Roskilde, Denmark.

Six human males each received 0.56 g phenylalanine (Phe) in the form of 1.0 g aspartame or 12.2 g bovine albumin in 200 ml water or water alone. Venous blood samples collected before consumption and during the following 4 hr were assayed for plasma levels of large, neutral amino acids (LNAA), aspartate, insulin and glucose. The area under the curve for plasma Phe was 40% greater, although not significant, after aspartame compared with albumin intake. The indicated increased clearance rate of plasma Phe after albumin may be caused by the significant increase of insulin, on which aspartame had no effect. There was a significant main effect of aspartame for plasma tyrosine but not for tryptophan, valine, isoleucine or leucine. Plasma aspartate was significantly increased at 0.25 hr after the aspartame intake. The percentage Phe/LNAA decreased slightly in response to albumin but increased 55% after aspartame and remained significantly increased for 2 hr. Tyrosine/LNAA increased and tryptophan/LNAA decreased modestly after aspartame intake. The study showed that the intake of aspartame in a not unrealistically high dose produced a marked and persistent increase of the availability of Phe to the brain, which was not observed after protein intake. The study indicated, furthermore, that Phe was cleared faster from the plasma after consumption of protein compared with aspartame.

and here:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/82/5/1011.abstract

Functional magnetic resonance imaging of human hypothalamic responses to sweet taste and calories 1,2,3
Paul AM Smeets, Cees de Graaf, Annette Stafleu, Matthias JP van Osch and Jeroen van der Grond
1 From the Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands (PAMS, MJPvO, and JvdG) and the Department of Food and Chemical Risk Analysis, TNO Quality of Life, Zeist, Netherlands (PAMS, CdG, and AS)

Background: Evidence exists that beverages do not trigger appropriate anticipatory physiologic responses, such as cephalic phase insulin release. Therefore, it is of interest to elucidate the food properties necessary for triggering adaptive responses. Previously, we found a prolonged dose-dependent decrease in the hypothalamic functional magnetic resonance imaging signal after ingestion of a glucose solution.

Objectives: The aims of the present study were to measure the effects of sweet taste and energy content on the hypothalamic response to glucose ingestion and to measure the concomitant changes in blood glucose and insulin concentrations.

Design: Five healthy, normal-weight men participated in a randomized crossover design trial. The subjects were scanned 4 times for 37 min on separate days with functional magnetic resonance imaging. After 7 min, they ingested 1 of the following 4 stimuli (300 mL of each): water (control), a glucose solution, an aspartame (sweet taste) solution, or a maltodextrin (nonsweet carbohydrate) solution.

Results: Glucose ingestion resulted in a prolonged and significant signal decrease in the upper hypothalamus (P < 0.05). Water, aspartame, and maltodextrin had no such effect. Glucose and maltodextrin ingestions resulted in similar increases in blood glucose and insulin concentrations. However, only glucose triggered an early rise in insulin concentrations. Aspartame did not trigger any insulin response.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that both sweet taste and energy content are required for a hypothalamic response. The combination of sweet taste and energy content could be crucial in triggering adaptive responses to sweetened beverages.

[fitfreak805]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

I'm not trying to call you out but this study showed that aspartame does not trigger any insulin response

[fitfreak805]

You beat me to it! Lol

[TheAdlerian]

Hi, new to the site but been lifting for a good 5 years. Wondering what your guys' take is regarding diet soda and weight loss? Been trying to lose some bodyfat but my friends keep telling me I need to cut out the diet coke. I drink roughly 4 a day.

That's some kind of hippie media nonsense.

It does not have calories and does not impact your daily amount, so factor it out.

[shadar]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

I'm not trying to call you out but this study showed that aspartame does not trigger any insulin response

There is no reason it should either, but the only people who perpetuate these myths about artificial sweeteners tend to have zero scientific background so they are easily mislead into believing ridiculous things.

Now, if someone were to say that 100g of equal has an equivalent insulin response to 100g of dextrose, they'd be pretty much right (it's actually about 1% less, but who's counting). The reason being that 100g of equal takes up about 100 times the volume of 100g of sucrose, or thereabouts (could be off by a factor of 2 even). The general idea is that aspartame is far sweeter than sugar (100-200 times). Thus they need a bulking agent (dextrose or maltodextrin usually) to attach the aspartame to so that they can make 1 teaspoon of this aspartame/dextrose mixture have an equivalent sweetness to 1 tsp of sugar. The dextrose/malto used is a very fluffy variety so that the least amount possible can be used while still taking up the correct volume.

This is why equal and spleda actually do contain calories (I think it's around 4 calories per Tbls and do spike insulin (equivalent to its weight in dextrose). 1 tsp of equal weighs a fraction of a gram. But anyone who's unaware of this would be easily misled if they heard a site claim that 100g of equal spikes blood sugar to the same degree as 100g of dextrose. It's true, but meaningless.

[haynstyle]

Im sorry, you absolutely cannot come to the conclusion that it has no effect on insulin levels based on a couple of studies done with 5 or 6 test subjects. I too was skeptical at first but researcher NP Fowler and her team used I believe 8 years of data encompassing over 1500 patients. I dont have the abstract....I can try and dig it out of storage. But rise in insulin was also well-documented by NIDDM In 1998. Neither side has come to a 100% conclusion but from what i've seen in my practice, diet soda most definitely contributes to a rise in obesity.

Then again, I also believe it is more of a quantity issue. Two liters of diet soda a day is not good for anyone. Believe me, I have patients who drink more than that daily. Dose is what differentiates a poison from a non-poison.

[TheAdlerian]

Im sorry, you absolutely cannot come to the conclusion that it has no effect on insulin levels based on a couple of studies done with 5 or 6 test subjects. I too was skeptical at first but researcher NP Fowler and her team used I believe 8 years of data encompassing over 1500 patients. I dont have the abstract....I can try and dig it out of storage. But rise in insulin was also well-documented by NIDDM In 1998. Neither side has come to a 100% conclusion but from what i've seen in my practice, diet soda most definitely contributes to a rise in obesity.

Was the drink used in conjuntion with other food?

Did the subjects drink the soda when hungry? There's a difference between "craving something sweet" and drinking the soda because you enjoy it. A person who is hungry would drink the soda, get no relief, and then their blood sugar might react.

I've been drinking the stuff since it hit the market and have never felt blood sugar changes as a result.

[Maxwell1995]

Why? Do you have any reason for thinking this?

I mean, it's not like it's going to harm him, but why not drink somethings else in place of one of those. Maybe something like coffee for his morning caffeine needs?

I dunno. Just giving my opinion ^_^

[UHCougar05]

[shadar]

I mean, it's not like it's going to harm him, but why not drink somethings else in place of one of those. Maybe something like coffee for his morning caffeine needs?

I dunno. Just giving my opinion ^_^

So you're telling someone to replace a part of their diet "just cause". That's rather silly. You say "why not drink something else", how about, because he LIKES it? If there isn't a good reason to stop then he has no reason to stop.

Im sorry, you absolutely cannot come to the conclusion that it has no effect on insulin levels based on a couple of studies done with 5 or 6 test subjects. I too was skeptical at first but researcher NP Fowler and her team used I believe 8 years of data encompassing over 1500 patients. I dont have the abstract....I can try and dig it out of storage. But rise in insulin was also well-documented by NIDDM In 1998. Neither side has come to a 100% conclusion but from what i've seen in my practice, diet soda most definitely contributes to a rise in obesity.

Then again, I also believe it is more of a quantity issue. Two liters of diet soda a day is not good for anyone. Believe me, I have patients who drink more than that daily. Dose is what differentiates a poison from a non-poison.

Come on now, those are three studies but there are tons more. And there are all the n=1 feedback from all the diabetics who use diet sodas all the time and don't have any insulin issues. There are many respected forum members who are diabetic or have diabetic friends/family who have personally tested their responses to diet sodas and shown no changes.

I'd say it's time for you to accept that the rise in obesity is due to an increase in calories being eaten, not an extremely tiny aspartame intake. Until you do you're just looking for ghosts to let people off the hook for poor eating habits.