What effects do diet drinks with the artifical sugars have on the body?

Anyone who tells you that diet soda is bad for you because it will keep you from your fitness and nutrition goals has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Yes, it is true, diet sodas may increase your sweet cravings in the same way that chewing sugar free gum with artificial sweeteners does, but it has no chemicals or ingredients that make you gain weight in any way. The majority of them even have no calories, no carbohydrates, no sugar, no fat.

Sorry, it’s just not possible to gain fat (weight) when all of those things are not present. Diet sodas and artifical sweeteners can have a caloric value. They are just trace in value because they are a chemical that your brain registers as 100-1000x sweeter (depending on the chemical composition of the sweetener) than natural sugars.

Thus, you can use much less of it and have your brain register the taste as sweet but be only consuming less than 3 calories from the artificial sweetener. The main reason why diet sodas are not as good as water is the acidity. But for fitness purposes its really negligible because diet soda’s can help combat cravings and help you maintain a good diet overall in terms of caloric intake and macronutrients.

Yes water is better for you. Water > diet sodas > sugary drinks in terms of losing weight, but diet sodas have negligible caloric value and are helpful for maintaining a good diet by satisfying your sugar needs. Drink diet drinks from time to time (but not as a substitute for water), there’s some sort of brain satisfaction, atleast for me.

Fact: Artificial sweeteners have no effect on insulin levels, at all. There are no proven studies that show that there is anything in diet soda that actually hurts your body with average use. The main artificial sweetener being currently used is Aspartame.

Aspartame: a safety evaluation based on current use levels, regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies.