Is Diet Soda Bad For You?

It is well known that most sodas on the market these days aren't as healthy as we would like them to be. This is terrible because people in western society consume a large amount of soda on a daily basis and this means a lot of extra calories that you could have done without.

If you recently decided to give up regular sodas and try to drink diet sodas instead, Good for you. You've taken an important step to help you lose weight.

But before you begin patting yourself on the back, you should know that you're far from done. Drinking diet soda may be better for you than regular sodas, but these are still far from the healthiest drinks you can choose to have.

When we examine out eating routine, we mostly look at solid foods and ignore what we drink. This is a shame because we easily consume hundreds of calories through our drinking and we hardly notice it. Diet sodas are a main culprit.

Is diet soda bad for you?

The answer is a resounding yes and for a number of reasons:

1. Sodas bad for your teeth - although diet sodas contain far less sugar than regular sodas and are mostly made up of artificial sweeteners, they're still highly acidic and may damage your teeth in the long run.

2. Diet soda can make you gain weight - even though diet drinks contain less calories than the original beverage, it that they're really that good. They might still be rich in calories. In addition, there's nothing like sweetened drinks to help you develop a craving for other sweet food, which means more calories.

3. Drinking diet sodas makes you drink less of more healthy beverages like water, green tea, or natural juices. You're missing out on the good things and sticking to the bad.

4. Drinking unhealthy drinks often makes you crave to snack. I often see people who drink bad stuff munch away on pretzels or other quick snacks which just stuff them with calories.

5. Aspartame, which is the sweetener which is often used to flavor diet sodas is the subject of much debate. There is research that links it to tumors in animals. It is currently deemed safe by the FDA, but there are numerous side effects concerning this chemical.

Remember, drinking can harm your diets even more than eating, because drinking doesn't really make you any less hungry. All in all, diet sodas can be bad for you and they don't contribute anything that's for sure.


To see more nutrition tips, go to Top 10 Super Healthy Foods

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The Truth About Diet Sodas

If you are one of the millions of people who drink diet soda because you think it's healthier or you think it's lower in sugar then you need to listen up. It's becoming clearer and clearer that diet sodas are worse for us than the regular, full sugared varieties.

Soda is not a healthy drink. Regular sodas contain high amounts of sugar, phosphoric acid and the dark ones contain the carcinogen caramel coloring. Nearly every dentist agrees that drinking soda increases the destruction of teeth.

Just one regular soda a day can lead to a 24 pound weight gain. For people who will are at risk for diabetes, this is about 40 g of sugars in your system without the benefit of any nutrients.

This is why people think that drinking diet soda is healthier. The lack of sugar means the risk of decaying our teeth goes away, the pounds will go away and the risk of diabetes goes down. That's not the case. In fact, new studies are showing that people who drink diet soda put on more weight and the risk of diabetes increases.

Most diet sodas contain the chemical aspartame. Aspartame is a chemical that within the human body breaks down to formaldehyde. We all know formaldehyde from our high from school, mostly because it's banned because it's too toxic to be around children. Aspartame can cause liver damage and kidney damage.

Aspartame also stimulates the hormone cortisol, which is the hormone in our body that encourages fat storage. People drinking diet sodas for weight loss end up storing more fat than they lose. Since cortisol is also a stress hormone, people who drink diet sodas have an increased risk of stress related health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure and certain psychological issues such as depression.

Perhaps the worst part about sodas is the caffeine. Caffeine is a stimulant drug. In small quantities, especially those that come from natural sources such as tea and chocolate, caffeine can help us work better, have clearer minds and reduce the risk of heart disease. Any more caffeine more than a half a can of soda or half a cup of coffee can throw off our body systems.

People who consume too much caffeine in the short-term develop jitteriness, inattentiveness, insomnia and skin problems like flushing. In the long term the excess caffeine can damage our brains, resembling Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, increase high blood pressure and damage the liver. And let's not forget that caffeine dehydrates the body. You actually need to drink twice the amount of water as soda in order to counteract the dehydrating affects caffeine has on your body.

Since the average teenager consumes 30 to 40 ounces of soda every day, nearly 10 times an acceptable level, we need to get the word out about just how bad these drinks are. As an occasional treat, no more than once a day, a small glass of soda is okay to drink. But any more than that and you're not doing your body a favor.


Christina Major is the Naturopathic Doctor and Holistic Nutritionist of Crystal Holistic Health Consulting. Crystal Holistic Health offers nutritional consulting for most health problems including diabetes, cancer, heart disease, weight loss and childhood obesity. Clients receive a full lifestyle interview and personalized nutritional and lifestyle education. Crystal Holistic Health also offers educational seminars and teleseminars on a variety of nutritional topics including eating habits, portion control and most health problems and how eating right can make them better. Check us out at http://www.crystalholistichealth.com/

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Diet Soda and Weight Loss - Are Diet Sodas Good Or Bad For Your Diet Plan?

What is the truth behind diet sodas? If we get right to the point, diet sodas are not good for your body. More popularly known as "pop", diet soda is now becoming a drink of the past and not recommended for future generations. There is a false belief that diet sodas are capable of making you lose weight. This is just a myth. They will only destroy your efforts in shedding off pounds. In fact, there are studies that show that people who drink them only succeeded in adding inches to their belly. This may come as a shock to those who patronize this beverage.

One of the fatal problems in this drink is that it is packed with artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners should be avoided at all costs regardless of the product they may be found in. Some of these artificial sweeteners are used to kill laboratory animals. Scientists get the body count ratio to humans in order for the product to be within the "legal limit" for human consumption.

Artificial sweeteners are known to make your body crave more carbohydrate-based foods. This will make you eat more carbohydrates, thus making you gain more pounds. Do not be fooled into thinking that since you have consumed zero calories, you may eat more than the normal quantity. The people who consume this drink eat more food because in their subconscious, they saved calories with this drink.

There is a varied choice of healthy drinks that you may opt for. The healthiest among them is water. It contains zero cholesterol and calorie. It will never make you fat. You may add lemon if the plain taste is not to your liking. Lemon is known to be one of the best cleansers for the body. It will help clean your kidneys of unwanted toxins.


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