Are diet fizzy drinks healthy?

Are diet fizzy drinks healthy?

A question asked by a client that has recently joined us at Bootcamp.

The client in question has tried many diets in the past and has always been confused around diet fizzy drinks stating that changing to them means they are talking the healthier option.

Now, this is not really a simple case of a straight forward answer.

Are they healthy?

It depends on your version of healthy!?

They provide very little nutritional value

They do however contain very much less sugar than there full sugar counterparts.

The majority of diets out there are purely run on dropping your calories.

For those that are not aware, in order to lose weight you need to be in a calorific deficit each day.

If you are eating more calories than you are burning, you will not lose weight, its that simple.

Now at LYB we do not track calories however our guidelines stick to whole foods to restrict the chances of over eating as the foods are more calorie dense and therefore you can generally eat more wholefoods than junk in terms of calories.

However, we also look at the nutrients you are putting in and also the structure of your foods across the day.

So, back to the point of this post

If you are someone that has dieted before and have swapped your fizzy drinks to the diet versions you are lowering your intake of calories and sugars from drinks and this of course is a good thing for your weight loss as long as you are not over eating and piling those calories back on through poor choices of foods.

Lowering the sugars will in turn be a good thing in avoiding things like diabetes once again as long as you are not increasing your sugars elsewhere.

This is where your overall structure comes in

Lets take a regular can of coke (330ml), that contains 139 calories per can so if you are drinking 4 of these a day that’s a whopping 556 Calories just from those drinks.

Change the can of coke to a diet can (330ml) and you have 1 calorie per can and if you drank 4 of these a day you would be saving 552 Calories.

So, that’s a positive thing right?

Yes, if your diet is just looking at calories.

However, as i have explained above, we go deeper than that because our experience of working with clients needs us to go deeper than that.

A regular can of coke (330ml) contains 35g of sugar which equates to 6 teaspoons of sugar.

Sugar is a carbohydrate and if not used as energy will turn to fat.

4 Cans of coke each day equates to 24g of Sugar!!!!!!

Now, once again, compare that to its diet variety

A regular can of diet coke (330ml) contains 0g of sugar, thats right 0g of sugar

So once again based on calories and sugars, the diet coke is the better choice.

Now, diet drinks may contain less sugar but they also contain artificial sweeteners.

One of these artificial sweeteners has had a lot of bad press over the last couple of years

Aspartame

Now, being honest and looking at the research they are actually still yet to prove that it is actually bad for you

Yep, you heard me right, there is no official reports saying it is bad for you, it has been given so much bad press that people now avoid it.

Now my view on this as any one who has worked with me knows is that avoiding this is a good thing.

Here is why

I am an honest believer in the research i have done with clients over the last 5 years that fizzy drinks hinder weight loss

Not because of their consumption as such and their ingredients, its mainly a reaction that happens when people drink them

Here is what we find

People who drink cans of fizzy drink across the day generally drink less water

People who drink cans of fizzy drinks across the day generally suffer with higher sugar cravings, this is usually down to poor structure across the day with food and water

People who tend to drink fizzy drinks across the day and evening tend to stay up later and dont sleep aswell. Is this down to the drink itself, possibly but it would be hard to actually blame it on the drink.

All of the above are findings from working with clients

Most calorie based diets out there allow diet fizzy drinks to be free on their plans.

This is the bit i think people generally struggle with

Because they are told they can drink as many as they like because they are free, they drink less water, are generally more dehydrated and have more cravings across the day due to the combined dehydration from a lack of water and poor food structure.

We work with all clients to generally avoid these drinks and replace them with water and also work on the structure of their diets.

In turn people feel more energized, feel fuller, have less cravings and sleep better.

So in summary, are fizzy drinks unhealthy, well it all depends on the structure of your diet.

To classify one thing as the cause to you putting weight on is wrong, diet fizzy drinks can help people stay on track and be used as a low calorie treat or help in a social situation when choosing not to drink alcohol and not be barraged with 100 questions however, for most, that’s the problem, they dont limit how much they have and it reduces water intake and food structure.

One thing is for certain from a sugar point of view, if you are someone who is consuming a high volume of fizzy drinks you will be far better off swapping to the diet variety to save a shed load of calories and run less risk of high sugar related illnesses moving forward.

Have a think as to how many fizzy drinks you have a day?

If you are having fizzy drinks are you still drinking a decent amount of water each day?

Are you drinking fizzy drinks and suffering with sweet cravings?

As usual, i would love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

Ross