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How bad is diet cola?

Old 08-03-05, 10:47 PM
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How bad is diet cola?

I'm now just gettling into cycling and I drink a LOT of diet pepsi. I know its worse than water, but I don't know why. Has no calories, carbs, fat, nothing .What kind of negative effects does diet cola have? I have been a heavy drinking on diet pepsi all my life and I'm thinking of quiting it now. But if I do limit myself to say 5 -6 cans a week is that still going to effect my riding?
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Old 08-03-05, 11:05 PM
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The only thing in a diet soda that might affect your riding (or anything else) is the caffeine. If you tolerate the caffeine now, then don't worry about it.
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Old 08-04-05, 09:08 AM
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terrible for you. do a google on artificial sweeteners and see what you come up with, can be frightening. also, cola has a lot of acid in it. at one time, some state troopers used to keep a case in their trunk b/c it worked well for washing blood off of the road.....yummy!
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Old 08-04-05, 09:18 AM
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Originally Posted by Marklar
I'm now just gettling into cycling and I drink a LOT of diet pepsi. I know its worse than water, but I don't know why. Has no calories, carbs, fat, nothing .What kind of negative effects does diet cola have? I have been a heavy drinking on diet pepsi all my life and I'm thinking of quiting it now. But if I do limit myself to say 5 -6 cans a week is that still going to effect my riding?
I'm not a doctor and I love diet cola, so my opinion will be ignorant and biased

Artificial sweetners are not good for you, but they're better than high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is worse than crack cocaine.

Caffiene is used by cyclists all the time, so I can't imagine cola being a problem. I know lots of people who'll down a cup of coffee before a ride.

WARNING WILL ROBINSON
I do believe that the carbination/acid can wreak havoc on your kidneys if you consume A LOT. A friend got sick some years ago and was told by the doctors it was specific to her soda consumption.
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Old 08-04-05, 09:28 AM
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As far as I can tell they're harmless despite the opinions of the hysteria types. The water used in cola is ultra-filtered and probably the cleanest water you can buy. Probably the only concern is if you drink less nutritious stuff like milk because you're drinking so much diet cola.
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Old 08-04-05, 10:08 AM
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5-6 cans a week isn't likely to hurt you. Just be sure you're also drinking water, especially at exercise time.
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Old 08-04-05, 10:33 AM
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I just read an article (forgot the mag) stating that people who consumed diet colas as opposed to regular cola gained more weight. Interesting if it's true.
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Old 08-04-05, 10:35 AM
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Originally Posted by 7stitches
I just read an article (forgot the mag) stating that people who consumed diet colas as opposed to regular cola gained more weight. Interesting if it's true.
it may be true but it's a type of false positive if you will. I believe they found that people who drank diet soda gained more weight because they indulged on food since they were being good with their drinks.
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Old 08-04-05, 11:07 AM
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Originally Posted by thirdeye73
terrible for you. do a google on artificial sweeteners and see what you come up with, can be frightening. also, cola has a lot of acid in it. at one time, some state troopers used to keep a case in their trunk b/c it worked well for washing blood off of the road.....yummy!
Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
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Old 08-04-05, 12:14 PM
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If you limit yourself to one can a day, you should be fine.

edit: Cola is hard on the kidneys. Rootbeer is better and clear soda is even better.

Last edited by edp773; 08-17-05 at 07:47 AM.
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Old 08-04-05, 12:36 PM
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no, but don't believe in the "science" posted by lab studies paid for by the industries responsible for selling these products. most of the reputable science has shown that it's not good for you, and if you know anything about physiology and chemistry, you'll know a lot of the crap in these drinks could have detrimental effects on the body over the long term.
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Old 08-08-05, 08:03 AM
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it may be true but it's a type of false positive if you will. I believe they found that people who drank diet soda gained more weight because they indulged on food since they were being good with their drinks.
That's exactly what they found, the soda wasn't doing anything about the weight, just the people who drank it tend to eat more, perhaps because of drinking diet softdrinks and perhaps not because of that. Although they did theorize that because you are consuming something with no calories your body may set off some kind of a "craving" trigger which would make you want to eat something to get some calories, but that sounds a bit funky to me (as drinking something like water would do the same thing).

Sort of like saying burglary is related to ice cream sales, summer has more crime, summer has higher ice cream sales.

I wouldn't worry much about the diet soda intake, 1-2 a day is probably fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things.

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Old 08-08-05, 08:11 AM
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Originally Posted by Marklar
I'm now just gettling into cycling and I drink a LOT of diet pepsi. I know its worse than water, but I don't know why. Has no calories, carbs, fat, nothing .What kind of negative effects does diet cola have? I have been a heavy drinking on diet pepsi all my life and I'm thinking of quiting it now. But if I do limit myself to say 5 -6 cans a week is that still going to effect my riding?
My father was losing his memory and there is no history of Alzheimers in the family. He drank diet Coke and put aspartame in his coffee. He tried all kinds of treatments, but his memory didn't improve. I read about how artificial sweeteners affect memory. I told him about the research and so he stopped drinking Aspartame sweetened drinks. Now his memory is MUCH better. I think Spenda is not so bad, but natural foods are always better for you than chemicals.
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Old 08-08-05, 08:11 AM
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it's evil......
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Old 08-08-05, 08:53 AM
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Originally Posted by Marklar
I'm now just gettling into cycling and I drink a LOT of diet pepsi. I know its worse than water, but I don't know why. Has no calories, carbs, fat, nothing .What kind of negative effects does diet cola have? I have been a heavy drinking on diet pepsi all my life and I'm thinking of quiting it now. But if I do limit myself to say 5 -6 cans a week is that still going to effect my riding?
You don't need it, so why drink it?
Like everything else in life, if you are a little disciplined and are interested in stopping, you can do so with ease. Think of the money you’ll save and think of the reduced exposure to non-natural agents.

Mark
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Old 08-08-05, 11:30 AM
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diet colas are teh debil

If you must drink them, follow a can of it with a equal amount of water to flush out the toxins...

diet colas contain a lot of sodium, which makes you retain water. If you flush it out, you won't retain as much water.
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Old 08-08-05, 11:44 AM
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diet colas contain a lot of sodium, which makes you retain water. If you flush it out, you won't retain as much water.
There's less sodium in a Diet Coke than in a serving of Gatorade (40mg for 12Oz vs 110mg for 8Oz), the same as a vanilla Gu gel pack (varies between falvors), etc.

If the worst thing in your diet is a can of diet pepsi every day then I'd say you're doing a lot better than 98% of the population.
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Old 08-08-05, 11:53 AM
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Originally Posted by soni_guin
diet colas are teh debil

If you must drink them, follow a can of it with a equal amount of water to flush out the toxins...

diet colas contain a lot of sodium, which makes you retain water. If you flush it out, you won't retain as much water.
uhh, the thing is, people who exercise a lot need more sodium than those who don't. I'm assuming that most members here exercise more than your average person.

on an average 2-3 hour ride, you can use up as much sodium as the FDA recommends for daily intake. That means, if you follow the FDA guidelines and you ride a fair amount, you'll go into electrolyte imbalance.
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Old 08-08-05, 11:56 AM
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Diet soda can be good depending on what is used to sweeten it.

Nutrasweet is the most common and the problem with it is that it triggers an insulin reaction just like real sugar. This reaction can make you feel lethargic and crave more sugar. If your blood sugar is already low and you ingest nutrasweet you can get dangerously low and begin getting dizzy and having headaches. In moderation and with a healthy diet it's not too bad though.

Splenda is better than nutrasweet. It tastes sweeter and does not cause insulin reactions like nutrasweet. It helps prevent cravings and dips in blood sugar. Splenda isn't used widespread yet and can only be found in a few brands like Diet Right. Coke just released a splenda sweetned diet coke that's pretty good though.


Personally I would rather drink filtered water. It's just more refreshing.
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Old 08-15-05, 06:54 PM
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I don't know about the sweeteners but as for the diuretic effects I have read that people who routinely drink caffeine are not really affected by its water absorption blocking capabilities.

One the other hand, the carbonation in any soda has some short term adverse affects. Part of the CO2 ingested will enter into the bloodstream and attach itself to hemoglobin which can then no longer transport Oxygen throughout the body. This decreases efficiency for a short time. Not really important to training but might make the difference in competition.

Be forewarned, coming off the caffeine in diet Pepsi will hurt some. If you choose to refrain buy some aspirin.
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Old 08-15-05, 06:59 PM
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Actually I thought that the intestines didn't absorb gasses otherwise we would have methane in our blood.

The body well regulates carbon dioxide in the blood stream because of it's PH. I can create carbonic acid and your body likes to maintain a certain PH so the rest is pushed out through the lungs.

Hyperventalating can actually lower your PH enough to see a difference on a litmus test.

Read "The Andromeda strain" by Michael Crighton? In it, a virus from outerspace kills off an entire town and the only survivors were a baby and a drunk. The baby survived because it screamed alot and lowered it's PH, and the drunk survived because he got high on sterno which raised his PH and the alien bug could only exist at a narrow PH in the body. Hehehe.
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Old 08-15-05, 07:23 PM
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Stomach acid is far more acidic than carbonated beverages, so no worries there. Carbonated beverages make you burp and fart more. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your attitude towards flatus.
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Old 08-15-05, 07:49 PM
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I've always considered diet soda a "chemical cocktail." Nothing real in there other than water! Kind of scary if you ask me. Diet Mountain Dew tastes pretty good though....

Good riding,
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Old 08-15-05, 08:36 PM
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lol, used to work at the golden arches, the amount of people that came in and ordered a large double quater pounder meal with bacon, cheese, 'chicken' nuggets, ice cream, with a 'diet' coke would suprise you.
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Old 08-15-05, 10:22 PM
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Originally Posted by DGale
lol, used to work at the golden arches, the amount of people that came in and ordered a large double quater pounder meal with bacon, cheese, 'chicken' nuggets, ice cream, with a 'diet' coke would suprise you.
Gotta start somewhere.
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