Is it safe to drink non-sugary drinks (like coke zero) while on a diet? Or do the artificial sweeteners just make you fat in some sneaky way?
In: Chemistry
Generally speaking, you’re going to be taking in fewer sugary calories if you drink artificially sweetened drinks instead of surgary ones, so it’s going to be better for any diet. But, it’s difficult to find any real consensus for how bad even zero-calorie soft drinks are for any healthy diet. You’ll almost certainly be in the best position by eliminating them entirely (at least for regular consumption, treating yourself from time to time is generally fine) and focus on just good clean pure water consumption to satisfy your thirst. But, for some, completely eliminating sodas is a bridge too far and will compromise their ability to stick with a diet, so keeping some zero-calorie drinks in there lets them get that fix without the sugar.
I remember reading some things about how taking in a lot of artificially-sweetened food/drinks can mess with your body’s metabolism. Your body senses you’re ingesting sweet things and is expecting a nice caloric boost, but doesn’t get it, and over time this alters the way it processes actual sugars to focus on storing them rather than utilizing them because it learns that they are much rarer than expected, but I don’t remember the source or how well-studied this effect is (if it is even real).
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