Exercise Health Fitness

Is Diet Coke Bad For You?

As a personal trainer that does nutritional counseling I often hear have people ask if diet coke is bad for you. And the answer to this question is YES, maybe not for the reasons that you would think but regardless of the reasoning behind it, diet soda is bad for you.

Why is Diet Coke Bad For You?

You might be thinking that diet soda is not bad because there are zero calories, how can something without any calories make you gain weight? Does diet coke make you fat? Well let me answer that question with a question: Have you ever seen an obese person that doesn’t drink coke or diet coke? Or have you ever seen an obese individual that doesn’t drink carbonation? I’m not saying that coke and carbonation are the only things that cause obesity but they are definitely some of the highest contributors to the problem.

Let me explain what happens when you drink diet coke. The diet coke uses artificial sweetener to trick you into thinking it is sweet, well you aren’t the only thing being tricked. Your body is also tricked and so the body releases insulin because it thinks there is a ton of sugar going around. Insulin then tells the fat cells to absorb everything so that you will have some extra fat for later. So you then covert that “fake sugar” into fat to be used at a later time when you need it. Great idea right? Well, guess what? You will never use those stores of fat because you always have diet coke, so your body always thinks it has tons of sugar, so you store more of it. This cycle repeats itself and you continue to gain weight.

So how do you lose the weight you gained from drinking diet coke? You drink water and exercise. It’s as simple as that. A diet coke every week will not have nearly the effect that a coke everyday will have. If you want to be in better health you need to exercise and drink plenty of water. Eat your calories, don’t drink them. With diet coke health risks outweigh any type of benefits.