Does Diet Coke Make You Fat?
Yes, Diet Coke can be a diet disaster for some people. The sweetener used in Diet Coke, Aspartame, is an appetite stimulant, which means it makes you feel hungry – and I don’t need to tell you, that is the last thing you want when you’re trying to diet!
I must admit I didn’t really believe the research when I first read about it, but I was having trouble losing weight, so I felt that it was worth a try to give up the diet sodas. There was no way I was going to drink water, so I searched the supermarkets for a diet drink that didn’t contain Aspartame. It wasn’t easy, but I finally found a diet cordial that contained a different artificial sweetener. I found, to my surprise, that I felt more satisfied for longer after meals where I drank this cordial instead of Diet Coke (or any other aspartame-sweetened drink).
Since discovering that aspartame makes me hungry, I’ve also cut out aspartame-sweetened foods such as diet jellies, ice-creams, hot chocolates and desserts. Sadly, I haven’t been able to find substitutes sweetened with other sweeteners. What I do now is to go without, or have a smaller portion of the real, sugar-sweetened thing. What I’ve realised is that the aspartame-sweetened versions never did satisfy me: they’re never as good as the real thing and I still feel hungry after I’ve eaten them.
There are still some questions about aspartame: not everyone reacts the same way to it. In fact, some people have quite nasty reactions to it. So it may be that not everyone’s appetite is stimulated by it, either.
However, at the end of the day it’s probably best not to rely on aspartame-sweetened food to lose weight, even if they don’t make you hungry. If, when you go on a diet, all you do is replace sugar-sweetened treats with artificially-sweetened treats, then you haven’t retrained your eating habits at all. So when the diet is over, you’ll go right back to the sugar-sweetened treats (because they taste so much nicer) and the weight will go straight back on.
Photo courtesy of Beau B on Flickr.
i read somewhere on the internet that long term consumption of Aspartame is not really good for the health. ;”"
i read somewhere on the internet that long term consumption of Aspartame is not really good for the health. ~”.