Does Diet Drinks Make You Lose Weight
- When it comes to diet sodas, scientific research is divided.
- Some studies suggest these calorie-free versions of sugary drinks can help people lose weight.
- However, a new major body of research claims low-calorie sweeteners are no better for weight-loss than sugar.
- Despite this, one sports nutritionist maintains drinks like Diet Coke can be helpful when trying to slim down.
Whether you're trying to lose weight or cut down on sugar, switching from regular sodas to sugar-free varieties is, on the face of things, an obvious first step to take.
However, these diet alternatives are largely full of artificial sweeteners to make up for the lack of sugar, and although they may be low-calorie, studies have suggested that they may be doing us more harm than good.
The latest body of research on the matter claims that low-calorie sweeteners are no better for weight-loss than sugar.
But despite this, one health and nutrition expert maintains that diet sodas can help you lose fat.
Scott Baptie, a sports nutritionist and weight-loss coach who has worked with athletes, often tells his clients to consume diet drinks to help them slim down.
According to Baptie, who has an MSc in Applied Sports Nutrition and is a Certified Specialist in Fitness Nutrition (SFN), drinks like Diet Coke can help satisfy your cravings for something sweet.
"Sometimes artificially sweetened foods, although unlikely to serve any nutritional benefit, can eliminate sugar cravings," the founder of Food for Fitness writes in his new book "101 Ways To Lose Weight and Never Find It Again."
📸 #Throwback to a time when training and healthy eating was simply about aesthetics, nothing else mattered. - 🙌🏻 Nowadays it's about doing what I love (more volleyball and less lifting), moving better, being outside more, training to minimise injury and getting stronger. - ✅ It's about doing what I do because I want to, not because I feel that I should do. - 🤹🏻♂️ Its about flexibility, moderation, balance and having fun! - 😜But don't get me wrong, you still can't beat a sick arm pump 💪🏻💪🏻
A post shared by Scott Baptie (@scottbaptie) on Aug 9, 2018 at 9:05am PDT
"If a zero-calorie diet drink is the drink of choice instead of its 300-calorie, full sugar counterpart, then that simple switch could make a big difference to your waistline."
Read more: 10 reasons you might be gaining weight that have nothing to do with your diet
Baptie points out that if you want to lose fat, what it ultimately comes down to is being in a calorie deficit — burning more energy than you're consuming — and diet sodas can help you reach this goal.
"Let's say you have a 500ml bottle of fizzy drink with your lunch every day and you switch to the diet version," he says. "Just like that you've reduced your calorie intake by around 2,000 per week, and you can do it knowing that the evidence shows that it's safe to do so."
He adds that the results of some of the studies suggesting negative health consequences of artificial sweeteners should be taken with a pinch of salt.
On one piece of research from 2016 which claimed that drinking diet drinks causes you to crave more sugary things afterwards, Baptie points out: "The study was done on mice and flies, we don't have data that shows this in humans.
"If someone uses a study to make an argument, is the subject population relevant? If it was an animal study, do the findings apply to humans?" asks Baptie, who has worked as a nutritionist for BBC Radio Scotland and multiple Scottish football clubs.
In 2017, a further study claimed diet fizzy drinks are more likely to cause strokes and dementia than sugary alternatives, but Baptie believes this is problematic, too.
"This study is observational, meaning it doesn't show exact cause and effect," he told INSIDER.
"It also may show 'reverse causality' whereby healthier behaviours (like drinking diet drinks instead of full sugar) are the result of the ill health in the first place, not the cause of it.
"Some studies show that overweight people are more likely to drink diet drinks, it's for the same reason. Lastly, this study is also based on self-reported data which can be erroneous."
Read more: 20 people who lost more than 100 pounds share their secret to success
Most recently, a major new review into low-calorie sweeteners concluded that replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners has no effect on weight-loss.
Despite the study's claims, Baptie highlights research scientist Vasanti Malik's comments that to reach any meaningful conclusion on the effects of diet sodas, we need more high quality studies on the matter.
Just as there is research to suggest low-calorie drinkswon'thelp you lose fat, there are some that claim they will.
For example, a 1997 study on obese women found that consuming the artificial sweetener aspartame helped them lose weight.
What's more, two 2012 studies found that replacing sugary drinks with calorie-free alternatives can reduce weight-gain and fat-accumulation in children and teenagers.
"A drink that contains zero calories cannot cause you to gain weight," says Baptie, who has an MSc in Applied Sports Nutrition and is a Certified Specialist in Fitness Nutrition (SFN). "It's physiologically impossible. There is no evidence that shows drinking diet drinks will result in fat-gain."
But even if diet sodas won't necessarily make you gain weight, both Baptie and Malik agree that this doesn't make them akin to water.
Ultimately, they both believe artificially sweetened, diet drinks should be considered a stepping stone on the route to drinking solely water.
"Based on existing evidence including long-term cohort studies with repeated measurements and high quality trials with caloric comparators, use of NSS [non-sugar sweeteners] as a replacement for free sugars (particularly in sugar sweetened beverages) could be a helpful strategy to reduce cardiometabolic risk among heavy consumers, with the ultimate goal of switching to water or other healthy drinks," says Malik.
Does Diet Drinks Make You Lose Weight
Source: https://www.insider.com/drinking-diet-coke-will-help-you-lose-weight-sports-nutritionist-claims-2019-1