<p>BCEagle, what I meant is that I will have one can when he comes home and then stop again. I have broken the habit and from Dec on it will be an occasional treat just like a piece of cake or something probably once a week. But as of now I have stopped it completely.</p>
<p>Years ago, I realized that diet drinks gave me headaches. Full-sugar sodas rotted my teeth. (I have five crowns and a root canal that I attribute to my serious college-years Coca Cola habit.) I switched to tea. In the winter I drink it hot; in the summer I drink it cold. I don’t add sugar or sweeteners and I drink it very weak so it’s not bitter. </p>
<p>Over the last year I’ve made a serious effort to avoid all “fake foods”–anything I can’t find in my great-aunt’s cookbook (about growing up in Kansas in the late 1800s and my great-grandmother’s cooking), I don’t eat. Cane and beet sugar are okay (and there are a few brands of chocolate that have cane sugar instead of corn syrup)… I’m doing a lot more cooking from scratch.</p>
<p>I buy the argument. I’ve gone the South Beach route pretty succesfully and eliminated diet soft drinks at the time … and my cravings dropped off after 3-4 days. To be honest the biggest issue I had was headaches from withdrawal from the cafeine … the first 2-3 days were not fun … but after that it was pretty easy. </p>
<p>(He says despite going off the diet/no soft drink wagon the last couple months … and needing to get back on track again … ironically, too much fast food/pizza stop on college visit trips this summer torpedoed my South Beach discipline)</p>
<p>I used to drink Tab as a teenager. I have not been a soda drinker as an adult. I used to smoke as a teen/young adult. I get more cravings for that damned Tab than I do for cigarettes. I still sometimes can feel the glass with the ice clinking and the fizzy drink bubbles tickling the nose as the first sip went down. Ahh addiction.</p>
<p>I have diabetes, Type 1.5. I can’t eat potatoes, bread, sugar… you name it, it’s forbidden (or highly restricted, which is the same thing.)</p>
<p>Love Diet Coke and artificial sweeteners. Literally, they’re lifesavers. And you’ll get them away from me when you pry them out of my cold, dead fingers!</p>
<p>Ive interpreted these studies to indicate that the sweetness in diet soda will trigger your system to respond as if you actually consumed sugar (i.e., increase insulin) and thus increase your appetite. So its not the cola itself that causes the weight gain (seriously, its zero calories), but the additional food one eats in response. Add me to the list of non-believers. At least for me, dropped 30 pounds on low-glycemic diet. I drank diet sodas while losing the weight and continue to drink them while maintaining (for the most part) the weight loss for over 5 years now. </p>
<p>Btw, all you diet coke drinkers gotta try Coke Zero. Way better than diet coke, imo.</p>
<p>I am with Tango14. I love Coke Classic. Rarely drink it cuz of the calories (and recent studies linking soda consumption to pancreatic cancer!). I have discovered that Coke Zero tastes quite similar. But… I have been drinking it occasionally (maybe once a week lately), and I have noticed that I have had insatiable cravings for sweets as well. I do have a sweet tooth, but usually am pretty good at controlling my consumption, but lately not so good. So a couple of weeks I stopped drinking it, and the craving for sweets has pretty much diminished. So I am a sample of one, but maybe there is something to this.</p>
<p>I gave up Diet Coke and all colas 2 years ago. I knew I was addicted. I had been drinking them for 20 years and loved Diet Coke way too much. I just got concerned about all the chemicals and thought if I didn’t stop now I never would. It was very hard to give up, so much so that I never drink one in fear of being hooked again! </p>
<p>I drink a lot of ice tea with stevia now. I haven’t lost weight but I eat fewer sweets and I feel much better. It’s is great to not have to haul all that soda home too. I never gave my kids soda because I felt it wasn’t good for you, so neither one cares for it.</p>
<p>I never really liked coca- cola, but I do love ginger- has to be * good* ginger though.</p>
<p>I can drink way too much Diet Dr. Pepper. When I do cut it out I feel better and don’t crave sweets so much. ( I also think it’s funny how much Diet Dr. Pepper tastes like regular Dr. Pepper.It doesn’t have that diet aftertaste at all)</p>
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<p>That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Your body thinks it’s getting sugar and responds as if it *did * get sugar. If I start drinking diet anything, I immediately start craving sugar. Besides, when you think about it - what is a soda (diet or regular) but water and chemicals? Blah.</p>
<p>I am a total diet coke addict, though if there is any truth to the bone density concerns, I will have to give it up at some point soon. My mother suffers from horrible osteoporosis.</p>
<p>When I was at my thinnest I did not drink diet coke, but seltzer with a splash of fruit juice. I don’t drink coffee but I do drink tea; I like the taste of diet coke and find I rely on the caffeine to keep me going - there just aren’t enough hours in the day, it seems.</p>
<p>Chintzy, how did you do it? That is an amazing accomplishment!</p>
<p>Diet Pepsi addict here. Swore off when I was trying to get pregnant and was off the stuff for a couple years, and then again when I was doing lots of interferon and HAD to drink a gallon of water a day. I do notice that my bladder, kidneys and scale are happier if I drink water, though…but need the caffeine for the constant fatigue.</p>
<p>Diet soda total addiction here, too.</p>
<p>I gave up soft drinks when I got pregnant and dropped ten pounds right away.</p>
<p>I try and try to give it up, but not being a coffee drinker, it is my only source of caffeine. </p>
<p>Have a hear arrhythmia, so don’t want to take caffeine pills, which my husband does when he misses his coffee.</p>
<p>I totally believe the brain thinks it’s getting sugar and starts the biochemical process rolling, which could indeed hinder weight loss.</p>
<p>Son is a Sprite Zero addict, and I was hoping he’d give it up when he went away to college, just because of lack of availability.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, he manages to get a weekly ride to the grocery to stock up on suitcases of Sprite Zero.</p>
<p>Never had an addiction to sodas but decided to eliminate meat and processed foods from my diet couple of years ago. So giving up diet coke was really no big deal. I just decided a month ago to give up Splenda - which means giving up my fav drink Arizona Diet Green Tea! It also changed the taste of my daily cup of coffee (yep, just ONE cup; I easily become addicted to caffeine and I don’t like it).</p>
<p>Anything every now and then I think is reasonable. I could never completely give up birthday cake!! ;)</p>
<p>I am cutting down on diet soda, and I have discovered that McDonald’s UNsweetened ice tea with a wedge of lemon is fabulous. I get one every morning on my way to work.</p>
<p>I looooove Coke Zero in a can. But it is so sweet that I can only handle it a few times a week. To save money, I bought it in a liter bottle, but I found I did not drink it. And now that I read this thread, I realize that I have dropped the afternoon chocolate habit recently. Was CZ in a can somehow triggering my need for chocolate everyday?</p>
<p>Why is the canned drink so much more satisfying?</p>
<p>As I mentioned I drink pop occasionally but not diet & this is a reason why.
[Duke</a> Study Not Sweet on Splenda](<a href=“http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/09/splenda_study.html]Duke”>Duke Study Not Sweet on Splenda)</p>
<p>^I have little doubt that artificial sweeteners are not a good thing, but this makes me suspicious: " . . . the powerful Sugar Association, the lobbying group for the sugar industry, which financed the Duke study."</p>
<p>There seems something wrong about Duke allowing an industry to capitalize on its apparent authority as an educational institution.</p>
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<p>Welcome to the world of pharma and food industry research. Who else is going to waste money researching fake sugar except:</p>
<p>a) somebody who wants research to convince you to buy fake sugar</p>
<p>b) somebody who wants research to convince you not to buy fake sugar</p>