Can Diet Soda Make You Gain Weight?

[Guest echtrae]

I rarely drink any soda, but I figured that there were probably many people on here who did.

Can Diet Soda Make You Gain Weight?

"When we would switch them on to diet soda off regular soda, we weren't seeing weight loss necessarily, and that was confusing to us," Rogers says.

[EveKnight75]

About the pregnancy thing... Daz, is that true? I wouldn't know because I've never been pregnant. Daz on the other hand, is diabetic and pregnant.

I've never experienced weight gain after switching to diet soda. But I did find the pounds melting off effortlessly when I stopped drinking soda for three months straight. I don't really drink soda that much any more unless it's to win a contest or something.

Aspartame, or any artificial sweetener for that matter, can be dangerous when taken in extremely large amounts close together, but that rarely occurs, even amongst those of us dependent on them.

I can tell you this: foods that are supposedly sugar-free tend to have extra fat in them to compensate for flavor, and foods that are supposedly fat-free have extra sugar in them for the same reason. As a result, if you eat food with sugar-free labels regularly, you're likely to gain weight unless you modify your exercise regimen to compensate. If you eat food with fat-free labels regularly, you'll find yourself hyper at times and ought to drink extra water to compensate for the sugar. Avoid foods that claim to be both sugar-free and fat-free because they'll actually do you the most harm and they taste icky anyway.

Personally, I prefer cooking and baking whenever I can, and usually go for the water. The only things I usually indulge in happen to be sugar-free chocolate and low-fat chips, because I'm a sucker for chocolate and chips tide me over well when classes last 6 or more hours non-stop.

If you want more advice on healthy eating, ask Sam. I'm not a health nut by any means.

[redsliver]

Aspartame has been accused of 105 side effects (alright sort of an exaggeration but not quite) however I have only had a doctor, Dr. Eugene Smith of Sydney Nova Scotia, confirm one of them: Heart Palpitations in weakened circulatory systems. Fetal, renal, pulmonary side effects have been claimed but never substantiated. All in all, most artificial sweeteners are defined as bad because of a panicked crusade started in the 80's against almost all chemical sounding food additives, aspartame and monosodium glutamate getting the worst of it.

[StoryJunkie]

A diet product won't really help you lose weight if you're still getting too many calories from other foods.

I think that line says it all.

Introducing foods that are super refined should be taken with caution.

Sugar has got to be the worst, I think, of all refined foods.

The convenience of already prepared food is soooo tempting, its difficult to resist when its so handy.

[dazzledfirestar]

About the aspartame during pregnancy. I had a nice little talk with my doctor about just that topic. In normal use, its fine. In fact, given the amount of the crap I've ingested in my life, most people would think I'd have every kind of cancer imaginable. But guess what! Me and my baby are fine, despite aspartame. In fact, I'd rather take my chances with it than with real sugar products that will cause many more problems for both of us. So, I'll risk it.