Calories in vs calories out is a myth. How do diet sodas affect insulin response? Not well I suspect.
“Calories in vs calories out” is a restatement of the second law of thermodynamics and must be true.
Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
101–110 of 141 posts
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#102Contrary to most opinions here, I lost weight through Diet Coke and diet drinks and kept it down thanks to it. These sodas (or rather the artificial sweeteners) allowed me to cut out sugar totally out of my diet at age 16 where I weighed 250 lbs at my highest, to 140 lbs at my lowest at age 21. Now I'm 30 years old at a healthy 160 lbs. I never worked out (still hate it) and only achieved this thanks to the dietary changes I was able to make through 0-calorie sweeteners. Perhaps my experience differs from other peoples, but I personally know 2-3 other people like me. Today, like most days, I drank at least 80 fl oz of diet soda and it never had a negative effect on me.
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#103Back in the dot-com days, thanks to employer-subsidized soda fridges, I was drinking easily 6+ cans of diet soda a day (in my case, Diet Dr. Pepper). Along with other startup related behaviors like eating fast food (Carl's Jr, what's up?) and not exercising, my weight increased to around 220 lbs on a 6'1" frame. I stopped drinking diet soda around the time I joined a weight-loss startup in 2011, and started eating he…
I think everyone knows that "diet" in a product name means it's healthier than the non-diet product. It also does help with your health if you were going to consume the non-diet version of that product in similar quantities.
IHMO you are confusing product marketing with good health advice.
Marketing is just a legal way to tell only the good side of a story.
"low-fat" usually means sugar. "sugar free" usually means artificial sweeteners (or something made without sugar anyway). Even "no added sugar" is suspect.
What I've found hilarious is the new "KETO!" marketing craze. I really suspect that most of these products will not induce or maintain ketosis.
(the actual health impact of ketosis is not clear to me anyway)
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#104Contrary to most opinions here, I lost weight through Diet Coke and diet drinks and kept it down thanks to it. These sodas (or rather the artificial sweeteners) allowed me to cut out sugar totally out of my diet at age 16 where I weighed 250 lbs at my highest, to 140 lbs at my lowest at age 21. Now I'm 30 years old at a healthy 160 lbs. I never worked out (still hate it) and only achieved this thanks to the dietary c…
Do you drink water at all? Have you ever had a kidney stone?
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#105Contrary to most opinions here, I lost weight through Diet Coke and diet drinks and kept it down thanks to it. These sodas (or rather the artificial sweeteners) allowed me to cut out sugar totally out of my diet at age 16 where I weighed 250 lbs at my highest, to 140 lbs at my lowest at age 21. Now I'm 30 years old at a healthy 160 lbs. I never worked out (still hate it) and only achieved this thanks to the dietary c…
Do you drink water at all? Have you ever had a kidney stone?
I do drink water sometimes. But during the day, when I'm working or out at a restaurant it's 99% diet soda. I haven't tasted sugar based Coke in over 15 years because of my aversion against sugar.
Never had a kidney stone or anything like it.
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#106Biggest advantage over regular coke: does not get sticky when you spill it.
Also, does not attract ants.
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think everyone knows that "diet" in a product name means it's healthier than the non-diet product. Disagree with this. Its marketing BS to focus on one diet optimization usually at the expense of something else.
What would be the something else? There are occasional studies that may indicate health risks associated with diet soda, but as best as I can tell they are not really conclusive. The health issues with consuming large amounts of refined sugar on the other hand are concrete and very well documented. Dental caries, increased likelihood of developing diabetes mellitus, etc.
It's true that refined sugar has been very clearly proven to be associated with terrible consequences to your health. But most of the sugar substitutes used in "diet" products simply don't have those warnings because they're just newer and less studied. But there's been a lot of recent research showing just how bad these artificial sweeteners can be even in small amounts. Some studies have even shown long-lasting and intergenerational effects on the gut microbiome[0] and increased cancer risks.[1] The impacts on the gut microbiome[2] are particularly worrying to me. Many of these sweeteners love to sit in your gut for a while and can lead to really weird microbiome makeups and possibly even be a risk factor for diabetes and/or metabolic syndromes
[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.79584...
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25231862/
More reading:
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/artificial-sweeteners-su...
- https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#108So they just decided to ignore the Caffeine in it for the sake of making a point?
It isn't mentioned, but maybe they used caffeine free diet coke?
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh no, the trick is to buy the sirup from a discount supermarket (for example Aldi's Diet Orange soda sirup) and dillute it with water from your sodastream (or sodastream knock-off, also from Aldi). This way you will always know that there are three components in your soda: sirup, tap water and CO2.
Ok so there's an even better trick, hear me out. Don't drink soda. It's sugar, water, and purple. Two of those are not good for you.
It's wild how far we go to keep doing our bad habits. It's like with veganism. That major EAT–Lancet study found that, although vegetarianism and veganism had many positive impacts on measures of environmental impacts, vegetarianism was actually more beneficial than veganism on impact of biodiversity. This is basically because vegans consume more "fake meat" and other such products that require a lot of processing and packaging and end up having a terrible impact on the environment
Curry is great! I do veganism occasionally for periods of time and I personally believe that if you can't do it without craving meat you are just not creative enough. There's plenty of amazing food and flavors out there that don't need meat. Not to mention, you'd probably have a smaller environmental impact by buying some really expensive meat/eggs from some free-range farmer from your local farmer's market than if you buy that fake meat stuff that's probably made of the soybeans grown on the soy farms that are rapidly replacing the Amazon
Re: Diet Coke probably isn't a cognitive performance enhancer
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am I the only one that experiences sugar as a depressant? Eating high glycemic index foods makes me lethargic and sleepy. I've never experienced a "sugar high". I also don't have diabetes as my blood sugar level is within norm during routine physicals.
It is probably just overload for you - I get the same thing after a big big meal or a lot of sugar. But a small amount is another story. If you drank the original size of coke (which I think was 8 ounces?) you might have another reaction!
The amount definitely has an effect, but its a linear function where lethargy increases proportional to sugar intake.