Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul9

diet soda debacle

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A recent column of mine in the Cincinnati Enquirer spurred some inquiries about the evils of diet soda.  Basically, people want to know, what is so bad about diet soda and why is it especially bad for losing weight. In fact, it seems a bit un-intuitive that diet soda and artificial sweeteners are not a good tool for losing weight, and can actually cause you gain weight.  Whoa!  Gain weight with calorie free products? This is why people are confused, and I am here to un-confuse them, so read on…

Diet soda is made with artifical sweeteners like aspartame (Nutrisweet), sucralose (Splenda), and acesulfame  potassium (Ace K).  These sweeteners are not only in diet sodas, but in almost all products that claim “less sugar” or “low sugar” or “sugar free.”  The problem is that these chemicals were never meant to be consumed in the high doses that they actually are consumed.

Another problem with artificial sweeteners is that they seem to stimulate the brain to crave more sweet. Yes, this may seem counterintuitive, but artifical sweeteners (with zero calories) can make you fat.  They cause cravings for overeating, replace needed nutrients from healthy foods to power our billions of cells in the body, and force your body into starve mode because it is indeed starving for nutrients, thus causing you to eat even more.

There is absolutely nothing good about soda, especially diet soda so stop drinking it.  It causes cancer, osteoporosis and diminishes the strength of the immune system.  If you live on diet soda all day to cut calories, you WONT lose weight–that’s a guarantee.