Experiment: see if I stop drinking Diet Pepsi will I lose weight?

Answer YES

Avid Diet Pepsi drinker, 1-2 20oz bottles per day. I would feel bad and get grouchy if I did not have my Diet Pepsi. It was bad, plus I had an idea that it could be causing me to gain weight. So it took a few weeks, who am I kidding; it took a month and a half to break the habit.

I started by exchaning my Diet Pepsi bottle with a water bottle. Each time I replaced Diet Pepsi I would extend the switch for an additional day. Example: off one day, on one day, off two days, on one day, off three days, on one day, off four days, on one day, off five days, on one day and so on. Now I am off Diet Pepsi and if I get to where I need something to boost my tired eyes, I have ice tea.

So this weekend we were out and about far away from home and we ended up needing to eat out. I thought hum, a diet coke for lunch will not hurt that much. What happened? When I did my daily weigh in first thing in the morning I weighed in 3 pounds heavier then the day before. It takes about two days for the weight to come back off. I'm shocked that my body is so sensitive to diet soda. Who would have thought?

Has anyone else had these kinds of responses to diet soda?

3 pound weight gain following a meal eaten out? My bet is water weight from all the sodium. Most restaurants have sodium-packed menus.

Sometimes I drink diet coke/ diet pepsi. Doesn't seem to affect my weight. But who knows, maybe you're allergic to something in it.

Exactly!

I don't drink diet Pepsi but I do drink diet Coke, several or more day. I haven't noticed weight gain from drinking it. Maybe it's not the diet Pepsi so much as it is the food you eat when you eat out. Restaurant food is notorious for having lots of sodium. I ate lunch at Texas Roadhouse today and when I logged my meal it was well over 1,800 grams of sodium. I know when I weigh myself in the morning it is going to show as a gain.

But I realize that it is just water weight and will drop off in a few days. It takes 3500 calories to gain an actual pound so I know my diet Coke isn't the culprit.

That's not a real weight gain. A 3 lb gain requires eating 10,500 more calories than your body needed to function. Losing it in two days requires a similar deficit of 7,000 calories. Pretty much Impossible to do in a 2 day period.

When your weight fluctuates on a day to day basis, it isn't real weight gain - it has to do with the weight of the food in your body and not yet eliminated, or water retention.

If everything else would have been the same in your diet except for the diet soda, I would think you had something there. But you ate out, that right there may have done it, sans diet soda. Like the others said, anyway it goes, it is probably mostly water weight (unless you really really over did it at lunch) and has little or nothing to do with the diet pepsi.

Agree with everything said above. BUT . . .

Diet soda, which tastes sweet even though it isn't, triggers a heightened insulin spike, just like real sugar. Just thinking about food does, being close to meal times, etc. So you're going to have a similar physiological response to it. In fact (just thinking) perhaps more so, as you don't have real sugar in your blood to sequester. Which is why diet soda doesn't help dieting.

I bet that wouldn't happen if you switched to wheat.

You're welcome.

the "diet" soda isn't responsible for your "gain"

I drink in excess of 12lbs of water a day. My weight fluctuates a similar (to 12 not 3) amount each day. It's not fat gain

It actually doesn't cause an insulin spike: http://examine.com/faq/do-artificial-sweeteners-spike-insulin.html#ref8

(I went to verify my understanding because (1) my spouse is a diabetic, and if artificial sweeteners caused an insulin spike that would be problem and (2) I know I react very differently to sugar v. artificial sweeteners (sugar triggers cravings; artificial sweeteners do not))

Diet soda and artificial sweeteners cause our brains to crave sugar, so we eat more. Artificial sweeteners are one of the main reasons we are all FAT!!

Mine is bread and tortillas. One serving=3 pounds!

soooooo...what are you looking for by posting this?

That is very possible. Read this:


CBS) Sorry, soda lovers - even diet drinks can make you fat.

That's the word from authors of two new studies, presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Diego.

"Data from this and other prospective studies suggest that the promotion of diet sodas as healthy alternatives may be ill-advised" Dr. Helen Hazuda, professor of medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, said in a written statement. "They may be free of calories, but not of consequences."

Consequences like weight gain.

For one study, researchers at the center followed 474 diet soda drinkers, 65 to 74 years of age, for almost 10 years. They found that diet soda drinkers' waists grew 70 percent more than non-drinkers. Specifically, drinking two or more diet sodas a day busted belt sizes five times more than people who avoided the stuff entirely.

And as waist size grows, so do health risks - including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20075358-10391704/new-study-is-wake-up-call-for-diet-soda-drinkers/

I have seen a lot of articles on this lately. I quit drinking diet soda almost 2 1/2 yrs ago. I never noticed any weight drop though.

This past year, I gave up diet sodas for lent.
For the first time, I started seeing the scale move.

I may drink a can every day or two but I used to knock down at least a half a 12 pack a day.

It does it to me too! I haven't been able to completely break the habit, ugh! Might use your method! Thank you!

Where do you get this information from?? What is your proof source for this?

I drank a diet coke and ate some corn. The next day, I gained 47 lbs.

I drink diet pepsi's every day during my entire weight loss, didn't seem to hamper my results one iota! It has no calories!

Articifical sweeteners in drinks can cause us to crave sugary foods. (whether you eat that food or not, it up to you, but it is sabatogory)

http://www.livestrong.com/article/77144-crave-sweets-after-eating-meal/
Paragraph 7

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/27/are-sugar-substitutes-worse-than-the-real-thing/
Q #4

http://www.medicinenet.com/artificial_sweeteners/page11.htm
paragraph 3




But more importantly. Soda rots your teeth.

**Edited because I used wrong word.

I would agree that it is probably water retention from the sodium in the restaurant food. I much prefer to cook at home and make lower sodium alternatives to traditional recipes.

An MFP friend once pointed out how high my sodium intake was. I was more careful after that and the first week dropped 5.8 pounds. I'm sure most of that was water weight since I was getting my sodium under control. The next week my weight evened out and I lost nothing then was back to my regular 1#-ish per week weight loss after that.

I try to look at online nutritional information ahead of time if I know I'm going to a particular restaurant so I can make a more informed decision.

i quit drinking Diet Coke in March and have never felt better. It was the most addictive substance I've ever been involved with and I don't want to disclose more than that. I have dieted with and without stopping Diet Coke and I'll tell you what, my binge-ing has almost completely stopped. I was a major binge eater for years. I've tried everything. It stopped when the Diet Coke stopped. I think that stuff really upsets your body in ways that you can't specifically trace to the substance but are definitely REAL. I also have way more energy and less digestive issues.

Seriously? You are posting Livestrong and CNN articles as proof sources?? How about a peer reviewed study maybe??