I am an admitted recovering Diet Coke-aholic.  I am ashamed to admit it but I was drinking a minimum of 6 Diet Cokes a day.  If I had to take a guess, I would say a normal intake for me was 9-10 per day.  I had convinced myself that Diet Cokes were a “freebie”.  I mean, they have no calories and they are very low in sodium.  What’s bad about that, right?

The truth is that nobody really knows.  However, there are a number of studies that have shown a correlation between drinking diet sodas and weight gain.  Want to hear something that’s going to sound completely counterintuitive?  In these studies, those that drank the diet sodas were proven to be at more of a risk for “Metabolic Syndrome” than those that drink regular sodas.  The theory is that the sweetness of the diet sodas desensitizes your tastes and makes it difficult for you to guage your caloric intake. 

I’m sure you may be asking, “What is Metabolic Syndrome?”  Well, I’m going to try to answer that.  Metabolic Syndrome isn’t a disease or sickness but rather a group of symptoms which includes insulin resistance (precursor for Diabetes), high blood pressure (hypertension), and Cholesterol abnormalities.  There isn’t a consensus on diagnosis for Metabolic Syndrome but there are two generally accepted guidelines: one from the WHO (World Health Organization) and one from the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel (now THAT is a mouthful).  In a nutshell, you are at risk if you:

–  Have a large waistline (over 40 inches for a males, 35 for females)
– High Triglycerides
– Eleveated fasting blood glucose level
– Blood pressure of 140/90 or above

So, there you have it.  As I said, nobody really knows why drinking diet sodas places you at a higher risk…only that studies have shown this to be true.  I finally came to this realization about a month ago.  I’ve had people telling me for years that diet sodas are bad but they couldn’t point to anything concrete and say, “Here’s why!”  Now they can and I’m convinced.  I dropped the diet soda and started drinking water and sparkling water flavored with fresh lime. 

Last night I had a diet soda for the first time in 4 weeks and I couldn’t believe how sweet it tasted…horrible!  In my opinion, once you kick the habit, you’ll probably never go back!