Do Diet Drinks Help You Lose Weight?

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When you’re trying to lose weight or keep off extra pounds, can diet soda help? While it has fewer calories than regular soda, some studies show it fuels your sweet tooth. Which means it makes you crave sweet foods or drinks. It's one more way the food industry has to try and keep you wanting more. That's what's causing the weight problem in North America. It's our addiction to sweetness. All manufactured foods contain some form of sweetener which fuels our need for more sweetener. 

When we crave food it's not because you'er hungry, it's because your body craves those chemical additives that manufacturers put in our food. 

So are artificially sweetened sodas good for your health? Several studies this year continue the debate. My personal feelings is that the chemicals used to make artificial sweeteners can't be good for you. The Food And Drug Administration has the same old reasoning for allowing it, "It's such a small amount, it won't hurt you."  Of course, if you drink six a day, then it's not a small amount any more is it. And because the same sweeteners are used in many other food and snack foods, we consume far more chemicals than we should. 

Earlier this year, in January, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reported that "overweight and obese people who drink diet sodas tend to eat more calories during meals and consume more snacks throughout the day than those who drink sugary beverages, including regular soda". In adults with a healthy weight, the opposite was true: Those who drank sweetened beverages ate more than those who drank diet sodas. Fortunately today we have soda water without sweeteners, just plain bubble water. 

Contrast this with a study published last year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It compared people who were randomly selected to swap their regular sodas for either water or diet drinks. The researchers found that both groups ate fewer calories and “showed positive changes in dietary patterns.” In fact, the diet-drink group ate fewer desserts by the end of the study than the water group, while the water group ate more fruits and vegetables.“Diet beverages have been shown to be an effective tool as part of an overall weight-management plan,” the American Beverage Association says. “Numerous studies have repeatedly demonstrated the benefits of diet beverages – as well as low-calorie sweeteners, which are in thousands of foods and beverages – in helping to reduce calorie intake. Losing or maintaining weight comes down to balancing the total calories consumed with those burned through physical activity.”

On Sept. 17, a study in the journal Nature suggested artificial sweeteners may raise blood sugar levels more than sugar itself by altering gut bacteria, potentially leading to diabetes. Industry groups, however, argued that the small number of mice and people studied make the findings hard to apply to larger populations.

Artificial Sweeteners and Other Possible Health Concerns

So, do diet drinks ease the urge for other sweets? Goran believes the opposite may be true. He worries that no matter what sweetener is used -- sugar or a substitute -- the result may be a continued demand for more sweets.

“As a society, we have created a new norm of sweetness,” Goran says. “We’ve become accustomed to high levels of sweetness.” One hundred years ago, people would add sugar only if they wanted sweet drinks like coffee with sugar, tea with sugar or Lemonade, but today in the grocery store we have isles full of sweet drinks. Some carbonated, some are sweet water and the most popular are juices.

By continuing to drink diet sodas or other sweet drinks, he speculates, “you still desire sweetness. You haven’t disentangled yourself from craving something sweet.”Dieters Are fortuntate today because the drink scene is changing. Yes zero calorie drinks are good but drinks with artifical sweetners are not. Today we can buy the new zero calorie drinks that are merely sparkling water with fruit flavor, no sweetners. Be careful of any drinks with sweetners, "zero calorie" doesn't mean "no sweetners".

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 


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