Who has the facts on diet soda?

[mystic]

Has anyone consciously intended to experiment and monitor how the inclusion of diet soda effects your progress specifically with Atkins? I drink so much water that, when I'm out with friends, or I want a treat, I want to know that a glass of diet soda isn't going to interfere with the ketosis process.

If anyone has experimented with this and found something notable, I'll be interested to hear more about it.

[mitzimarie]

Since everyone is so unique in what they can tolerate, there is no way to make an accurate blanket statement, such as:

1) Diet Sodas always negatively affect weight loss on Atkins.

or

2) Diet Sodas never negatively affect weight loss on Atkins.

Personally, I have found that they do, indeed, stall me. I have had nothing but water for about 6 months now, because of that. Others swear that it doesn't affect them. You'll just have to experiment with your own body, and make a personal decision based on that.

[Hayden]

I can't say that I've done a conscious experiment with diet soda. I can report that I enjoy soda, and find, just water, water, water, so so boring.

I've drank just water, and lost weight.

I had a three week period, when I ALSO drank Coke Zero, and I lost almost no weight at all. Maybe 1lb with the 3 weeks, if that.

I stopped, and drank just water, and started to loose weight again.

I had another week, when I drank Coke Zero again, but lost no weight.

Currently, I'm drinking just water again.

The Coke Zero, has no sugar, so it still maintains my body in ketosis. However, for me, it brings my weight-loss to an absolute stop.

If you are willing to experiment, I'd be very interested in your results.

Originally Posted by mystic

Has anyone consciously intended to experiment and monitor how the inclusion of diet soda effects your progress specifically with Atkins? I drink so much water that, when I'm out with friends, or I want a treat, I want to know that a glass of diet soda isn't going to interfere with the ketosis process.

If anyone has experimented with this and found something notable, I'll be interested to hear more about it.

[deec73]

Aspertame has been a known diet "staller" for years. The good thing, for people who just cant drink water and have to have their diet drinks, is they make diet drinks now made with Splenda, which shouldnt cause any stalls.

[mystic]

Hayden - excellent feedback - exactly what I was hoping someone had noticed. Mitzimarie - agreed. It's going to vary per person. It only takes three different situations to see a pattern. I was hoping at least three people had done something similar to Hayden. I'll hold out for more, but I'm going to run tests on this as well.

I get headaches from Splenda so that's not an option for me. Today I had soda twice so this will be my first day of record. I'll keep you guys posted.

[mystic]

I've been doing some research tonight. Verrrrrry interesting. It turns out, or at least all of the research I've read so far is summing it up this way.

Diet soda inherently doesn't have any properties that explicity supresses weight loss. Many reports state that using diet soda *may* confuse your body into thinking it was going to get something sweet, but when there's no sugar to be found, the body revolts and sends cravings for it. You end up eating more.

This however has not been proven.

I read and read and read about diet soda... same old stuff everywhere. No one has any stats or hard facts or serious research.

So I changed my search terms to "water and weight loss". One of the first articles I found gave me something concrete. Here's partially what it said with link to full article afterward.

"There are many forms of metabolism going on in your body right now, but the one everyone is talking about it the metabolism of fat. This is actually something that the liver does when it converts stored fat to energy. The liver has other functions, but this is one of its main jobs.

Unfortunately, another of the liver's duties is to pick up the slack for the kidneys, which need plenty of water to work properly. If the kidneys are water-deprived, the liver has to do their work along with its own, lowering its total productivity. It then can't metabolize fat as quickly or efficiently as it could when the kidneys were pulling their own weight. If you allow this to happen, not only are you being unfair to your liver, but you're also setting yourself up to store fat."

Full article: http://www.inch-aweigh.com/water.html

Now there's something I can chew on and frankly, that's enough right there to convince (even) me to go nothing but water!

So, for the moment, after just a bit of research, I would say that it's not diet soda that causes stalls. It's the water that's not consumed as a result that could be sabotaging the kidneys' and liver's fat-burning functions.

I'll keep reading to see if I can dig up additional evidence.

[mystic]

Chi-ching... more evidence for water... like you guys don't know this already, but for the noobs like me:

"After drinking approximately 17 ounces of water (slightly more than 2 glasses), the subjects' metabolic rates increased by 30% for both men and women. The increases occurred within 10 minutes of water consumption and reached a maximum after about 30 to 40 minutes."

Full article: http://www.drdonnica.com/today/00008300.htm

I have to wrap this up for the night here, but I think I'm going to alter my test here. I'll up my water consumption to at least 2 liters a day and include a soda. Course after all that water - who's thirsty?

[Debi2007]

I agree that everyone is different and it could go either way for a person. Those are good water facts. I did a do a little experiment once based on something I was told. She said that I should drink at least half my body weight in ounces of water. That is hard to do when you wiegh alot, but I gave it a try. I drank as much water as I could for two solid weeks. I didn't change my eating habits one bit and was not dieting at all. I lost 14 lbs. It was an insane amount of water to drink, but it taught me the importance of drinking water.

I won't drink diet soda because I won't put artificial sweetners into my body. However, it is the carbonation I enjoy so I drink a product that Shoprite sells. It is bottled water that is carbonated with natural flavor and has nothing at all in it. Just water and natural flavor. It is pretty good and feels healthy to drink. It is hard to find water that has flavor or carbonation that is actually free of any added products.

[mystic]

Wow! 14 pounds? Well that backs up what one of those articles was saying that you body will release all the excess when it believe there's a steady supply of water. I now believe part of my weight problem is due to lack of water alone! Thanks for the feedback (and the tip on the Shoprite water)!

[deec73]

I did a do a little experiment once based on something I was told. She said that I should drink at least half my body weight in ounces of water.

If you gauged the water based on your 400lb start weight, that would be 200 ounces of water, which would be a gallon and 72 ounces, which in reality isnt that much water. We are urged to drink about a gallon a day anyway.

It does show how important water is to weight loss though.