Feature
- Are You Breastfeeding For the "Right" Reasons?
- CarLashes: Because Even Your Car Needs a Vagina
- Would You EVER Take These Sex Tips?
- When Strippers and Churches Protest One Another
- Your Children Are Disgusting Perverts and It's Never Going to Change
- Would You Allow a 14-Year-Old to Get Permanent Makeup? This Mom Did.
- Rapper Cee Lo Green's "F*ck You" Goes All Viral on Women
- Sure, Women Will Have Equal Pay ... in 57 Years
- Miley Cyrus: Not Such a Good Role Model After All
- Where Have All the Masculine Men Gone?
We all have that friend. The one with silver and red bottles scattered around their room, their car, and packed into their purse. It may be the person in the mirror. Yes, the Diet Coke addict. I constantly throw away old half-gone bottles carelessly shoved into the fridge by my roommate, and on a recent visit to San Diego I realized my best friend had also fallen victim to the soda’s sweet grasp.
All those with a Diet Coke in their palm, raise your hand. That’s what I thought.
To many it may not seem like a real addiction, but if you’re close to someone who drinks several Diet Cokes a day, you realize it’s a serious as smoking. Maybe it’s the false sense of security they get by drinking something that tastes good (to some) but is sugarless and therefore “guilt-free.” Maybe it’s the caffeine buzz they can get without the fat content of a 24oz latte. Maybe it’s become a part of their lives, and the coke addiction, much like nicotine for smokers, is threaded into every day activities (meals, breaks, walking the dog, showering (?)…)
Hooked on the bubbles, Brenly, 26, said she drinks at least three Diet Cokes a day, which draws tsk-tsks from some of her friends.
“I have a lot of friends who are health nuts–who do yoga, shop at Whole Foods–and I get a little flack from them for my Diet Coke consumption,” Brenly said. Brenly, a smoker, said some friends try to convert her to a smoke-free, pop-free lifestyle–but both are tough habits to break. When she attempted a two-week health kick, “the first thing to go was the all-water pledge,” she said.
“I always feel pretty guilty about it, like when people started recycling,” Brenly said. “I feel guilty that I’m not trying to be healthier.”
No matter what the reason, sugary sodas and their aspartame/nutra-sweet/splenda-laced partners are being called the next tobacco, and getting the finger-point as the cause for many of the developed world’s health issues, including obesity and heart – disease.
Lucy Danzieger, Editor-in-Chief of SELF Magazine kicked the habbit late last year in response to learning the health risks that went along with it.
Here’s why: Recent research has shown that artificial sweeteners in soda may interfere with your body’s ability to estimate how many calories you’ve ingested, so you eat more than you need.
In a new rat study, animals that ate fake sugar consumed more calories overall and gained weight, compared to those that didn’t eat artificially sweetened treats.
This is just one study, but it’s enough to make me want to kick the can habit. Need more convincing? For every diet soda you sip daily, your risk of becoming overweight can rise by 37 percent, according to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
We also know that regular soda is a total sugar bomb — most people I know gave it up long ago. At roughly 225 calories a pop, a 20-ounce bottle of regular soda packs nearly as many calories as a chocolate bar (but is much less satisfying).
So damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can stray away from regular sodas and dodge the high sugar content and go diet, but no matter which you choose you’re more likely to have health problems later in life. Pick your poison.
Side note: I can’t explain how difficult it was for me to type the word “soda” so many times. I’m from Montana, and there we call it “pop”. What is this “Soda”? Go back to California. Or New England.
-
-
19
GAH, I broke this habit long ago. The artificial sweetners are actually worse than sugar, they cause Migrane headaches and weight gain of all things. Switch to green tea with ice.
Holy shit, I’ve been getting migranes a lot lately and never put it together with the diet coke or diet pepsi that I drink (lots). I am trying to wean myself off of it….
It’s not really the sugar causing the head pain, its the caffine, it causes the blood vessels to wig out which leads to pain, which leads to slight inflamation, which leads to more pain and a migraine. Just learned this from my doctor about a month ago though my way of explaining probably sucks.
Makes sense to me copa, thanks…I drink around 1 liter of diet coke per day. No wonder….
ha. I was born in Ohio too– I refuse to call it soda. I feel so weird every time I try to say it.
*oh, scratch the too
I was born and raised in NE Ohio where it was always pop! I will use the word soda if I’m in with people of a different demographic. I have had people ask me what pop was years ago, but I think anymore both terms are recognized. IF you want people to know where your from use the word pop.
yeah, diet coke’s definitely not great health food – but what actually struck me most about this was that woman’s comment that she “gets flack from” her health nut friends about drinking it. i’d hate to have my friends criticizing what i ate or drank, no matter what it was, unless maybe i was *seriously* putting myself in danger. we all have bad habits, and if you ask me, the practice of woman “friends” scrutinizing one another’s diets is way more harmful than an ounce of artificial sweetener.
totally agree
there’s nothing more annoying
live and let live!!
:*S
Im one of them
It is ABSOLUTELY addicting!
I drank Coke like crazy as a teenager and in my early 20’s (about half regular and about half diet) and I knew it was terrible for me so I quit. For three years I didn’t have a single soda. Then I let my guard down and had a few here and there and the next thing you know I’m drinking them excessively again. At the peak I was drinking 5-6 a day! So about six months ago I quit again. I went through massive caffeine and sugar withdrawals for about 5 days and then that was it.
For me I know I cannot drink Coke or Diet Coke I will slip back into it. I have had the occasional Sprite but I don’t like the taste of that near enough to drink more than one every few weeks.
I feel so much better now. In addition to cutting out Coke I also cut out most sugar and high fructose corn syrup. You won’t find it in my house at all and I manage to avoid it as best as possible when out. As a result I have about 90% fewer headaches. Now they are occasional rather than a regular occurence. I’ve lost 10 pounds, and I just feel better overall.
Soda and sugar are absolutely addictions and should be treated as such if people expect to be able to kick them!
Thank you for this article. I’ve been telling my mom for years how much I want her to kick the diet soda. She has high blood pressure and headaches all the time.
Why can’t we get together and put the soft drink companies, cigarette companies out of business?
Some of us are trying. But the rest of us are buying.
( i totally did not intend for that to rhyme)
As much as diet sodas may be unhealthy to consume in great quantities and may have adverse affects on some people, I am grateful for diet soda makers as well as for the increasing variety and improving composition of diet sodas. I am a Type 1 diabetic and it is really difficult sometimes to find drinks that are suitable for incorporating into my daily life as a result of my disease.
Diet sodas aren’t my number one choice, but I do drink them occasionally and with moderation. (Of course, I believe that you can consume whatever you like IN MODERATION.) I am sure most of you would argue that sodas are the devil and we should only drink all natural juice, milk, etc. But I dread the day that sodas are banned in schools or no longer served at restaurants because juice often has even more sugar in it. Many soda companies are now offering diet drinks sweetened with Splenda, which has absolutely no adverse effects since it has the same chemical composition as sugar minus the molecule that requires endocrine activity- or an injection of insulin for people like me.
If you don’t like diet soda, don’t drink it. Don’t propose restricting the choices of other people who may not have the liberty to choose regular.
Aspertame causes Cancer in lab mice. Try drinking flavored seltzer, it doesn’t have artifical sweeteners just fruit flavor and no calories.
hey.. hey taryn whats the matter?…. you want a soda?
fantastic
Caffeine actually helps some people control migraines. You need to fugure out which type of person you are.