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I like that you are your own sponsor. I'm jobless and have to reach out to strangers to help me make rent. I give them artwork in return as a thank you though. So I'm trying the independent route as well! Though as of now I'm still making frames and artwork for the "thank you"'s, so I can't invest in your venture, but as a note of appreciation I didn't skip through the ad portion! I appreciated the mini vacation from in video ads.
I used to only drink diet coke, now i drink diet lemonade that uses much safer sweetners. I was talking to my daughter (13) about how i never drank it while i was pregnant because of the caffine/sweetners. She was like well why do you drink it now.....so i quit. Had ss pretty bad pressure headache for 7 days then was fine. I do miss it tbh. Caffine is no good because i have fibromyalgia so i avoid it in all sourses.
Science: "Aspartame is an amino-acid compound that is about 160-200 times sweeter than sugar. Aspartame is absorbed from the intestine and metabolized by the liver to form phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol. Aspartame can contribute to weight gain, obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes mellitus." Aspartame is still processed by the liver and can cause diabetes just like sugar. Here's how normal sugar is processed by the body: First, it is converted to glucose in the liver and introduced into the bloodstream. When glucose levels get too high, the pancreas starts churning out insulin. Insulin converts glucose to fat. The body then stores the fat. Consuming sugar substitutes like Aspartame hides the true amount of sugar consumed because the amount isn't on the label. The daily intake limit for sugar set by the FDA is 40mg but that's the hard limit and should only occasionally be reached maybe once every 6 months. 20mg is about the average daily limit you should strive for. The body needs SOME sugar per day but most people consume 3-6 times the FDA daily limit. Using sugar substitutes does NOT solve the problem of obesity, calorie reduction does NOT factor into losing weight, and the use of substitutes simply hides how much material enters the body. The fact that long-term use of Aspartame has the same results as regular sugar means that the body still considers those substances to be sugar - whether or not the brain is involved. Sugar substitutes basically get to avoid being documented on the label of the food product other than the ingredients list. There are 185mg of Aspartame in a single can of Diet Coke. If you do the math, that amount is effectively equivalent to 29,600 to 37,000mg of sugar in terms of sweetness. That's clearly designed to overload the brain and create an instant addiction. Also, 185mg is already 4.6 times the daily intake limit of sugar as set by the FDA. So Diet Coke is specifically engineered to be addictive by overloading the human body with signals it was never designed to process and the entire product is a giant lie. It has fewer calories, but calories do not create fat. Sugar -> glucose -> insulin -> fat. Removing sugar from the diet = weight loss.
Dozens of studies have linked aspartame to serious health problems, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, seizures, stroke and dementia, as well as negative effects such as intestinal dysbiosis, mood disorders, headaches, migraines and non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
I feel the line "too lazy to pour a glass of water" is scarily true and derserves it's own video, single serving products creates a lot of waste and weird habits
Omg, as soon as I started making the time to have a cold pitcher of water in the fridge, or even just a water filter and ice on hand, I was able to cut out sodas entirely. Making healthy alternatives convenient is a big deal.
@@victorialee1307 Your filter comment made me realize something. I've never thought about this because I've grown up in a place where the tap water is safe to drink and like, tastes good? In many places, that's not the case. It's a lot easier to drink water when it's easy to access.
@@myconfusedmerriment Yeah, same. When I was younger, I was really confused why people in the US buys water instead of drinking tap water. And then I heard stories about the water tasting like pool water and people getting sick from it.. and I finally understood.
I didn't know this was a thing and the first thing I think is you guys don't drink enough water 🤣 (not that this is the answer) I couldn't imagine drinking that much diet coke with the water I drink.
I had a SEVERE addiction to Diet Coke. Prior to going into hospital for my eating disorder, I was drinking 6 LITRES A DAY, I couldn’t stop. After not having drunk it the 6 months that I was in hospital, I had a sip of my brothers one day and thought it was absolutely disgusting. The whole thing is equally insane and terrifying.
This really got me feeling happy that I got into the habit of drinking water over everything else. Now that I think about it, I usually just go with water because it's my default drink.
Same! Stopped drinking soda years ago after drinking 32 ounces or so daily, and lost so much weight with just that change thst it convinced me to give it up as a regular drinking option forever. Now for me it’s an occasional treat, usually in the form of a mixed alcoholic drink.
@@johnbonham1980 literally part of my strat to prevent overeating is consuming water. i have a really big water bottle (when i say big, it's like 2..5 liters) which is the recommended daily amount. i sip on it through the day, and i drink a glass of water before meals and a half glass in the middle of the meal. helps me feel full, i rarely overeat these days. i have lost around 4kg in 1.5 weeks so far.
I am so glad that all my mom gave me was water or milk. I only had sugary drinks or food at birthday parties or holidays. My snacks were tomatoes, cucumbers, or green peppers with some garlic salt. As an adult I find soda disgusting and I am doing the same for my children. It amazes me how many people are astonished when my children ask for water over juice or soda when we go to their houses. Why are so many people ignorant about nutrition and well being? This seems to be a pretty important issue to address in our society.
I was a picky child and never wanted to try soda, when I got a bit older I new it was healthy and decided to just keep avoiding it. 21 and never had any soda besides a sprite when I was 12.
I find that so interesting. The things my parents restricted the most were the things I obsessed over as an adult. I think if my parents were strictly healthy with me as a kid i would be worse off than I already am now lol
its funny that there is a comment right above the comment about a person who was addicted to coke and thought it happened because their parents did let them drink soda very rarely ig everyone are different, so don't be surprised if your kids would not have the same experience later in life and i would say juice isn't that bad to not drink it at all, no need to be too restrictive
Because a family member is an engineer, they always complained that diet drinks rotted the drains they were building. I’m pretty sure that was just to scare me off drinking them but it definitely worked as a tactic!
If you have a toilet, sink, shower or tub covered with lime scale and grime line it with toilet paper and soak the toilet paper in regular coke, leave it for 4 hours and the grime is easily scrubbed off with a sponge. Disturbing!
Well it is kinda acidic and the bubbles do help break down crud. My dad uses it to clean corrosion from car batteries...and it has a semi-decent use as toilet bowl cleaner if you're on a budget. It can corrode the enamel on your teeth with excessive use (but so can coffee) besides that maybe it was just to scare you.
They weren't trying to scare you off. Coke can also be used to clean horseshoes!! When we were little, my cousin lost a tooth and left it in a glass of diet coke overnight (science experiment from our mothers) and in the morning her tooth was literally dissolved. That was enough to keep me away from the stuff.
@@daniellethaxton6800 we thought that at first, but the cup was in our room the entire night and she is a lightttttttt sleeper. If they did that some good trickery
I believe it has to do with the ''o calorie''. Sugar is highly addictive, and seeing 0 calories wired us to completely shut down our guilt or worries .
@@gm2349 yeah same here. the most ill drink is zero sugar coke because DAMN is that new formula good but i rarely drink it so i usually just drink some good ol cherry coke which is my favorite soda right next to barqs. Funnily enough i used to think barqs was a diet soda cause of the can color
@@gm2349 I guess the key is to instill paranoia into people like this, because that’s my reaction. I refuse to drink or eat anything that says 0 calories (unless it’s like water/carbonated water)
The withdrawal symptoms (headaches and light sensitivity) could be from the caffeine though. A lot of people get migraines when they don't drink coffee every day.
This is absolutely right. A very small fraction of people are actually allergic to aspartame and they would have a reaction to drinking diet cola. Not stopping it. The addiction is simply to the caffeine.
Yep, I don't like the taste of sugar free lollies and I can take or leave sprite zero. It's the caffeine for me. And the taste...stupid taste. It's not marketed in Australia much at all
I switched to diet soda after being diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes. After a year, I realized I was drinking twice as much soda as I used to. Last month, I decided to quit drinking it. After a few days, I became very agitated and full of anxiety. I was angry and depressed. It took a month for these withdrawal symptoms to pass.
Back when I had a Diet Coke addiction, it was definitely because of the aspartame! I couldn’t get enough of that artificial sugar, whether it was diet sodas or sugar-free candies!
I am a waiter and can honestly say some of the strongest reactions I've ever had is telling people we are out of artificial sweeteners or diet coke, it is not often but sometimes we are out of those and people react "too me" outrageously dramatic but to them it is the worst thing I could say
I’ve heard on some psych podcasts that habits themselves can be *actually* addictive, as in, our bodies can go through physical withdrawals when abstaining from certain behaviors. Of course the severity is on a much different level than for instance, opioid or alcohol withdrawal, but the fact you can experience physical withdrawal symptoms by giving up a habit just blows my mind.
That's true. For example, some people can't abstain from smartphones for some time without displaying signs of agitation, shortness of attention span and difficulty concentrating, among others. Even when those people don't really have important things that they really shouldn't miss out on on their phones (like work or relationship stuff)
This is so true. Just doing something often is enough to bring us comfortable. It's expected and we look forward to it. Getting rid of it would totally make us agitated. It makes sense.
For me with smoking cigarettes, it’s almost entirely the habit itself that I find addictive. I may have an initial nicotine buzz if I haven’t smoked in a while but after that, it’s entirely the action and ritual associated with it.
My brother went to new york on a school trip and when he came back he said the coke drinking was wild. He went into a fast food and both the small, medium and large coke were a dollar so he obviously got the large. But it was so massive he had to share it with his friends, and he came back just being sick of coke in general.
Oh that's another component, the huge portions and the cheap price, why get the small one if you can get more bang for your buck with the big one? I'm talking about fast food in general btw
I am from America but I went to South Korea on a trip once. I bought the Diet Coke there at the store because I drink it regularly in the USA. I started getting severe headaches and I couldn't understand it but once I got back I pieced together that their Diet Coke is not the same as the one in the USA. It seems like the USA drinks are way more powerful but in other countries they are regulated in how much caffeine and such they must put in it.
@@Dan-di9jdDamn American food is probably one of the least regulated food markets in the world. It‘s always crazy how such a important thing could be left so unregulated.
Im grateful for my parents being anti soda growing up. It wasn't allowed in my house. So I never got accustomed to drinking soda on the daily and never developed the habit. And now as an adult, I drink a lot of water and actually do NOT like the taste of soda! Its always funny to other people that I do not lie soda, but its just how I grew up.
Agree! I grew up in the USSR, so we didn’t have any tasty soda and the one we had in the stores were bought on very rare occasions. So now am totally indifferent.
In my case, I just never liked soda even when it was offered. And as such, when I saw a video of otters reacting similarly negatively to carbonation, I totally related, because for me, carbonation=yuck.
Same! I also realized how grateful I am that as an adult I don't really have these urges bc my childhood. My mom would only allow me to consume one main dessert a day so if I drank soda that would be it. It only lasted a while and it wasn't strictly enforced, but it helped me really understand that sugary drinks are harmful and I often think before consuming. I also don't like it so much lol
For the withdrawal reaction, I’m guessing it’s actually probably related to caffeine consumption more so than the aspartame. My friend who drank coffee every morning, then stopped drinking it for 2 months, experienced withdrawal symptoms like the ones you listed for 2-3 weeks. (I am not a scientist tho lol, this is just a theory)
It’s kind of like how in Germany Weed dealers will combine tobacco and Weed to get customers physically addicted and to keep them coming back. I wouldn’t be surprised if coke-cola the company intentionally keeps caffeine in their drink for this reason.
@@homosexualitymydearwatson4109 What kinda weed they selling? And who tf buying? I get selling to some stupid teenagers, but like, any real stoner going to know something aint right with that bag.
@@DragonMoth34 did you miss where I stated this was a Germany thing and not America? Idk I’m American, i have no idea what (some) Europeans put in their weed. Clearly weed here and the culture is different.
For anyone struggling with quitting soda be it diet or their full calorie counterparts, I highly suggest slowly phasing out the habit by drinking sparkling water instead. Sparkling water mixed with a bit of (real and not packaged shit) juice makes for a healthier alternative that scratches that same itch. (Obviously don’t drink to much juice or you risk just having the same amount of sugar you would anyway)
Hella late hut seconded Child of divorce here. My mom was a "70s hippie", hardly wore shoes, lots of sundresses, and so much kale im still conviced shes 80% rabbit. But pops was th3 other way. Gave up the hippie life to get into the street department/firefighter career and would always have a 12 pack of soda at home. If i stayed with him 4 nihhts a week, all 12 sodas would be gone At 16 i wanted to quit. My Metabolism was insane so i was still skinny but i hated how soda made me feel enslaved to it. Sparkling water, just Le Croix unflavored, saved my ass. The bubbles and crack of a cam replaced what i n3eded Now im an alcoholic with 2 years and 3 backslides and i can say my casual relationship woth soda helped me chug hard liquer and not notice for many many years
For many years, I drank a Diet Coke (or Coke Zero) nearly every afternoon, until my dental hygienist told me it was ruining my teeth. That finally got me to kick the habit.
You dodged a bullet there mate. I drank Coke almost exclusively during my childhood and it wrecked my whole row of front teeth! They basically rotted away and I had to get a full veneer or whatever you call it at age 23!
I know that sodas ruin teeth however I don’t understand how you got affected so badly. My boyfriend has been drinking multiple cans of Pepsi every day for over 30 years and his teeth are very good. Every time he goes to the dentist they do nothing to him except the cleaning because he doesn’t even have cavities. So I’m not sure how one can daily could have caused such damage to you
@@chorabari I didn’t know, I’m lucky cos I only drink a Fanta maybe once or twice a year but I do notice that when I do drink it I then want more so it’s def got something that is addictive
@@chorabariI don’t buy it. I suspect genetics plays a large role. I’ve drank more than 2 litres of Diet Coke every day for 30 years and I’ve never even had a cavity.
I was up to 6 cans a day, then got snowed in for 3 weeks and didn't have any, forced to quit and I was so sick for like 2 weeks, hot sweats, flu like symptoms, aches, I went through some kind of terrible withdrawl haven't touched it since. I've also learned a lot about the lack of ethics of the company, buying all the clean water in small. poor villages, so people have to buy coke.
Ya I watched this documentary on this village in Mexico and they have the highest consumerism of coke and I think diabetes. They have no fresh water because their water is contaminated with e coli. Coke company runs near that town takes the good water and they basically live on coke. Even cook with it. It's so sad. Death toll for diabetes is horrible
@@Gaibreel Yes! What makes it ok to take all the water from a village? In the old west, they were the evil villians diverting the creek, and they usually got shot and the towns folk had a celebration. Now it seems like anything goes if there's a dollar to be made. And the way the stocks work, they can't just make a nice profit in an area and be happy, they have to continually grow. So they grow and grow without an ethical foundation, and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And then they can convince many of us to blame the poor, rather than blame the profiteers. And they replace food with poison, and skyrocket the costs of drugs and medical care. People who are struggling to survive don't have a lot of time to study the system and find out it's rigged and then have enough energy to complain. Got a little long, oops.
my friend had to quit diet coke because she was in a really bad financial situation and she was also miserable af! it’s pretty horrifying to think about, really.
I grew up with a crunchy mom and we never drank soda. As a kid I was jealous of the kids who got soda all the time, but now I realized that they were forming an addiction/dependency. I had to watch them struggle and fail to regain control of their health as they developed health problems. I knew a girl who exclusively drank diet coke and she was prediabetic before she hit 26. It was so hard for her to drink water (or anything that wasn't soda) at that point that she struggled to drink one glass of water a day.
same here, all those things were prohibited at my house and whilst I would indulge during my teen years or when I went to my friends' house, nowadays I find them disgusting. I am so lucky that tropical fruits are a prefect dessert for me
I knew a kid growing up who was never allowed candy or any drink but water. It went the opposite way for her. She was so obsessed with soda, juice and candy, she'd steal the stuff from other people's lunch boxes and nobody wanted her for play dates because she would beg you to ask for juice, soda or candy non stop. I think she got herself addicted to sugar when leaving home just because nobody could tell her anymore that she couldn't.
I didn’t have crunchy parents but we just never had soda in the house on a regular basis and I’m glad for it because I think I could have developed an addiction to it. I’ll have it on occasions when it’s around but it’s not something I think about and crave.
I figured out it was addictive over 20 years ago when I worked at a company that kept a fridge in the break room stocked with several kinds of soda but bought easily 6 times as many cases of Diet Coke because we went through them so fast. It wasn't just people watching their weight who were addicted. Everyone was. I finally quit cold turkey and had a terrible headache for 3 days when I did. Later I found that if I made an exception and had a Diet Coke, I'd quickly get hooked again and had to go through quitting all over again. I just had to not drink it ever. It's so bad for your teeth and your sugar metabolism. Really messes you up. We used to joke at that job that they were putting cocaine in the diet coke again like they used to do with the original Coca cola. Don't know what it is, but I agree it's addictive.
I used to have a diet soda addiction, and as you said, it was entirely because the whole "zero calories" thing made it feel healthy. A medical condition forced me to stop drinking it all cold turkey for two weeks, and I haven't been able to go back. It just tastes like battery acid. Probably one of the best things that could've happened to me - I feel much better without it in my life!
Not yet watched the video, but Diet Coke literally made me so so sick for over a year and I didn’t realise it until I stopped drinking and had horrid withdrawal for over a month after. Best transition I’ve ever made. Less weight gain, reduced appetite, no more headaches or dizzy spells, no more energy crashes, no more insane cravings for more, no more high/ irregular heart rate and pressure. I believe it’s most likely the aspartame or something inside of it, as I still drink caffeine and feel heaps better
You could be intolerant to aspartame. I found out I was when I switched from normal cola to zero. After a couple of days drinking zero I started to get sicker and sicker. I stopped drinking it a month and felt good again. Started the zero again and got sick the second time as well. After that I experimented once with non-caffeine diet drinks with aspartame and also got sick from those. (It was so bad the first time when I didn't know, that the fourth day my stool came out almost white... So that's clearly not good.)
One thing I believe is important to note is that a lot of people that become addicted happen to be so because they are trying to quit some other addiction. They don't work on the root of the problem; rather, they switch around thinking that doing this is more healthy than whatever they were doing before.
@@human_70 no, vaping is the lesser of two evils. if you already are addicted to smoking than vaping is a very good alternative for awhile then hopefully you can quit vaping as well or switch to nicotine gums or patches and then eventually get off of that. now if you don't smoke at all and don't have a nicotine addiction then you shouldn't vape.
Diet soda is quite literally, scientifically speaking, less sweet than regular soda. Like by objective measurements (and yes, they do have objective measurements for sweetness!) "Zero" (technically false, but close enough lol) calorie sweeteners are usually significantly sweeter per gram than their natural full calorie counterparts, but usually contain flavor profiles most people find unpleasant. It's why Stevia never caught on as a popular sweetener. Stevia has a distinct, medicinal aftertaste. Aspartame and sucralose are widely considered the best tasting "zero" calorie sweeteners, but unfortunately aspartame came along about a decade too early and got a bad rap as being dangerous, despite being just as safe as sucralose, and despite BOTH sucralose and aspartame being SIGNIFICANTLY safer than actual sugar.
As someone that both smokes and regularly consumes energy drinks, I can 100% confirm that anything containing large amounts of caffeine can very much be habit forming, especially when consumed ritually once a day. You wont have the same long term withdrawal symptoms like you do with nicotine, but it does hit like a truck when you cut it out completely.
@@eleanormason2647 Exactly, I'd like to see a study of that. I have a feeling the "aspartame" withdrawal symptoms are just caffeine withdrawal ones projecting and forming into a placebo effect with aspartame. I feel it works this way, if one drinks diet sodas with caffeine a lot with diet sodas and drinks that don't contain caffeine sprinkled in as off days/weeks, they will be withdrawing from caffeine during the time they're going caffeine free/extreme trace of caffeine (I just recalled that [with coffee especially] you can't make it completely caffeine free, this might not apply to sodas though since it can be made mechanically, via machines, without caffeine*). *I feel like the not completely caffeine free applies only to tea, coffee, and chocolate which naturally contain caffeine
@@PinkAgaricus yea, and the reason people seem to be particularly addicted to Diet Coke might be because it’s calorie free and people drink it more readily without hesitation. I really doubt it’s the artificial sweeteners when caffeine is so much more obviously addictive
My aunt and cousin brought diet Cokes to my uncles wedding and cracked them open the minute we sat down the reception. It was really weird. My dad called it out jokingly and they got offended…who gets offended over something like that unless it’s an issue?? 😭😂
@@KayetlinAlexander I know, 20 years ago I had to attend a group therapy and one guy there was a former alcoholic and would carry around a 2 liter of diet coke where ever he went, but the funny part is he kinda cradled it in his arm like a baby...
Regular coke is way healthier in the big picture. Zero calorie fasting kills your metabolism and thyroid function. Calories matter but only in a context. Pop addicts are never obese. If you incorporate a few sugared drinks into your diet you'll lose weight easier and function at a higher level than you ever will with long fasting periods and few carbohydrates. This fad of fasting and living on stress hormones that make you 'feel good' is ridiculous. High energy intake, high expenditure is ideal. Diet Coke tastes awful, it's hard to comprehend being addicted to this.
I used to work at a gas station about 5 days / week. We had a couple probably in their mid 50's that would come in almost every day and buy 6 bottles of 2 liter Diet Pepsi. they both openly admitted they were crazy about drinking it, and really weren't even that physically unfit, but it was obvious they were literally Diet Pepsi addicts. It blows my mind thinking about how they can even drink it that much
As a kid I always thought soft drinks as “spicey water” and never understood why other kids like it. Now I do but I’m still not a fan of the fizz and I’m grateful for that 😂, I avoid it whenever I can
My mom has been 'addicted' to (storebrand) diet cola for .. as long as I can remember, so at least 29 years. Over the past couple years she's been struggling with chronic fatigue and her doctor told her that her iron levels were way too low (10, when it should be between 50-250). She's been eating fairly healthily and exercising and seemingly doing everything right, but she didn't tell her doctor about her cola consumption. Once she did, everything fell into place. Cola and other caffeine containing drinks break down the iron in your blood. She's now been struggling to get rid of the cola, and even though she's replaced almost all of it with other diet sodas (she doesn't like water at all), she still consumes it every week at least once.
@Nono Chere Please check with your primary physician to see what the best plan is to get your numbers back up. I hope you'll get back to good health soon!
“She doesn't like water at all" That's the biggest problem with many soda addicts, water isn't something that you should choose to like. It's extremely important to our body. It's like somebody saying “I don't like breathing". Basically, we don't get to choose because our body needs it. I hope your mom can overcome it and get better. But water is always the best option.
Haven't consumed any soda since 2019. I noticed that after a month or so my mood was better and had better night's sleep. Losing 20 pounds of belly fat was a plus as well. If America banned Soda and breakfast cereal we wouldn't have as much obesity as we do.
I would love to see limited hours of fast food restaurants (like 10-8), and dine in restaurants with better regulated portions and quality (at least on chain levels), but I’d be dreaming lol
This video explains why diet coke is addictive, but I didn't really take away the consequences. What are the health complications that can come with diet drinks? Thank you for your content.
Aspartame breaks down in the body as Formaldehyde, and not in small doses, which leads to a greatly enhanced risk of cancer. With that said, Aspartame appears in many products, and we should just flat out be concerned with our consumption of anything in high doses. A few diet cokes won’t kill you, but be wary of drinking loads of it 🤷♀️
@@lesyeuxsansvisage1157 I use aspartame in my coffee all the time, protein deserts, and I also drink some diet drinks. Idk what it’s doing to my body but it’s dropping BF % and helps me stay in a deficit. I know it’s not amazing for you but it seems pretty benign.
@@lesyeuxsansvisage1157 If you're talking about this famous "diet coke might cause cancer" turned to "diet coke causes cancer" by medias, it was almost non existant
as a diet coke conniseur, this video and the way you presented the message was EXTREMELY effective in educating me and giving me pause to put down the Diet coke.. you are a blessing thank you!!!
In college I worked for a woman who drank copious amounts of regular Coke. One summer she decided to give it up and man, it was like watching someone detox from the other coke. She was so done in she couldn’t play the sport that we participated in for weeks. She was cranky, headachy, and exhausted. It was scary to see.
I know this was a while ago but I went thru the same thing with quitting regular coke too. I naively thought coffee would help. It just kept the headaches kind of at bay. Felt like a serious case of the flu.
I’ve never had trouble with being overweight, the opposite, I’ve struggled to put on weight for as long as I can remember but watching you break down everything and go in to so much detail it absolutely applies both ways due to changing the behaviours. Thank you for your content and I’m currently working on changing those habits so hopefully I’ll be able to comment soon as a heavier man 🙏🏽👏🏽
@@trompell0 that's rude and dismissive and indicative of the struggles that us underweight people have in society. Would you tell a fat person to put the sandwich down or to skip the cake at a party?
As someone who drinks a coke or two on occasion, I think diet coke is absolutely RANCID. I can't remember the last time I voluntarily drank one of those. My best friend, however, has tried to cut back on several occasions and always orders one when we go out together.
I started off not liking it and then started drinking it as a way to lose weight (because I loved regular coke.) Got used to it and now I genuinely like it. So I think it might be gradual.
I don’t understand this. I quit sugar 9 years ago. I stopped soda one day to the other. Can’t even remember gore it tasted. Why did you quit Diet Coke but continue to drink normal coke? What for?
Sometimes I feel like the only one who finds it bizarre and almost dystopian how every restaurant offers primarily soda as beverages. I get that it's cheapest for them to do that, but since I stopped drinking soda regularly in high school, I can't even imagine downing a whole glass of it with a meal. I would feel so sick afterwards. It's like having birthday cake every night for dinner, that's how strange it is to me, and everyone else accepts it as default.
Nice to see someone else who quit coke in or shortly after high school lol. I've had A couple sips of coke since then and it's really unbearably sweet - and I have a HUGE sweet tooth, practically nothing is too sweet for me, but coke and Pepsi are. I do have sprite or mountain dew a couple times a month but, like you, can't fathom having multiple soft drinks every day
Totally agree, I found the idea of soda existing and being popular mind blowing. Probably because I never developed the taste for any soda or carbonated drink.
For me personally, and this sounds super messed up, because it is lol. I started drinking it when I was a young child, under 5 years old. Went from diet pepsi to diet coke, it was what my mother drank, I craved that metallic sour taste all day, I felt literal withdrawal symptoms without it. At my worst I was drinking 4 cans a day, doesn't sound like a lot, but it was awful. I quit cold turkey, and now the taste and even just the smell makes me feel nauseous.
This video helped me quit drinking soda. I realised how much i drank it, and how it was never as satisfying as i remembered. Now i sometimes have a can and cola tastes metallic, unsatisfying, with that too-sweet flavour that I used to crave.
I switched from fruit juice to diet soda, something I've been hesitating to do for a long time. But I was easily consuming too many calories in juice and then overeating after the inevitable sugar crash happens. I switched to diet soda and the weight started to drop off straight away and continues to do that, to this day. The ironic thing is that I had to form a bad habit, just to be healthier by losing weight. (I mostly drink water - it's just for my meal beverages)
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 juice still has sugar in it, even if its organic fruit juiced yourself. Is it healthier? Yes, but the sugar inside doesn't go away or become healthy just because you're juicing.
@@drinfernodds natural sugars are fucking healthy for us. We need them. Processed sugar is just bad. What's so hard about understanding this? Nice trying to disregard proper diet moderation. Enjoy all that processed corn in everything which is literally poison to us
this channel is honestly one of my favorite channels I've stumbled across on the web. It's not just some girl doing minimal research and saying 'fat people dumb just stop eating 🙄', it's a person who had gone through weight loss herself and is doing tons of actual, medical research to help out and inform those who are also trying to lose weight. I'm an overweight girl, not super fat or anything, but I've always wanted to lose weight for cosmetic purposes. I've always been so down on myself and hated the way I looked since I was in elementary. I've started another diet not too long ago along with adopting Kiana's tips, and it's worked. I've been losing weight properly by realizing the psychology of my habits and making an effort to do better. all in all, this channel is not only entertaining, but incredibly informative and has extremely well put videos. keep up the amazing work Kiana, and thank you for all you've posted and shared for us !!!
It's probably the caffeine in the coke. In my sophomore year of college I drank copius amounts of diet sodas. Quit drinking them and felt off for a few days, then to figure out it was likely the caffeine.
I'm so glad I decided as a teenager to stop drinking soda. It's so obviously addictive and bad for your health as someone who almost exclusively drinks water. But it just seems normal when you drink it habitually. I still get weird looks when I say I just want water or don't want the combo meal with a soda at a restaurant.
My high school chemistry teacher at the end of the school year stacked all the two litres of diet coke that he drank throughout the school year in the back of the classroom and there was well over 150+ bottles there.
I had a therapist years ago that always had to crack a can of Diet Coke open. She was in her seventies and drank several per day, she provided drinks at her practice for her patients partly because she was always opening drinks and felt rude not offering them. Generous lady, super addicted to Diet Coke. I remember talking to her about the different studies out there about the harms and she just shrugged, what’d you gonna do 🤷🏽♀️ she said it was her worst vice so eh beats smoking lol
I used to drink alot of soda, especially zero sugar coke and always used the excuse that "At least I'm not smoking or drinking like most people so I'm still better off" to justify it.
I used to drink way too much regular soda (I never got into diet soda) and I think this was because it was framed as a rare treat when I was a kid. My parents normally didn't let me have it, but whenever we'd go to a restaurant or on special occasions, I could. Once I got my driver's license, I suddenly became in full control of dispensing this reward and could decide that just making it through a tough day was enough to earn it and this, of course, led to deciding that making it through a regular day was enough, then just making it to lunch.
@@moonsigilGrowing up we never had soda in the house but I was allowed to drink it when we were out. However I never cared for it. I wonder what the best approach is for parents. My younger brothers were allowed to drink it first when we ate takeout and then on the weekends and now they drink a coke a day 😵💫 I suspect the reward (“this is special”) aspect plays a big role 🤔
In college I actually did a 2 part pilot study on mice on the effects of different sweeteners when dissolved in water. The first part analyzed their weight gain, the amount of food they ate and the amount they drank and the second part reintroduced a source if regular water to analyze if they had a preference. Finally at the end we compared their relative organ sizes mostly just because we had learned that technique that semester... But it was a very cool study and I'd kill to it on a much bigger scale. For our small groups of mice the groups with different artificial sweeteners drank less of the normal water when it was reintroduced than the group with regular sugar water... The study was by no means perfect but it strongly suggested that in mice the artificial sweeteners were more habit-forming than regular sugar. The mice with artificial sweeteners also ate more food and weighted more and the aspartame mice had a heavier relative weight to their hearts, enough to be statistically significant...
Wow, I wonder what the biochemistry of aspartame is that is can cause such profound changes. Did you happen to look at blood serum leptin and ghrelin levels? Obviously the artificial sweeteners were impacting hormone cycles. I prefer diet coke to other sodas but I do make a serious effort to limit myself. At the end of the day, I know aspartame is a Monsanto product and I'm not going to trust the company that produced DDT (Agent Orange) and popularized polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which have found their way into just about every water source on earth due to their complete lack of biodegradability. In pregnant women every microgram of PCBs per liter of blood serum decreased the odds of having a male child by 7%. Although PCBs are described as organic molecules they're artificial organic molecules which actually makes them more dangerous because they are bioactive. The human diet is so fucked.
Kiana, unfortunately, I have a powerful addiction to diet soda because of the taste and free of worrying about calories. It's like alcohol if it was legal to buy under 21 and doesn't harm you.
Worrying about calories isn't going to improve your health. What you're eating and drinking will. Stop eating processed garbage and you'll notice a difference
Knowing how deliberate the marketing is just has me slamming the water down faster. I used to be addicted to the regular coke for many years. It's been 8 years since I regularly drank it. For a while it ended up being swapped in with other drinks, but between weight watching and hating the taste of artificial sweetner, the worst i do on the regular is kombucha :)
I personally think Americans drink way too much fizzy drinks in general. So I’m from the uk and I went on holiday with my family to Aruba, and most of the guests there were American rather than British. When we were there it was so easy to ask for a refill of a fizzy drink but when you asked for water or just normal fruit juice they usually didn’t have it and had to go look for it. And when I looked at the other guests and the rate of their drinking of fizzy drinks, it was too much for me, I would have probably gotten diabetes if it was me. Btw this was what I observed in the hotel so it was mostly Americans (yeah you could tell the Americans apart, and they were super loud too).
The reason for my “addiction” to diet soda is purely to do with my eating disorder. It’s a way to taste something/fill my stomach a bit without consuming calories. I definitely wouldn’t be so hooked it if I never had an eating disorder.
@@skrillah6259 yes i seem to be sensitive to artificial sweeteners. I cant tolerate splenda, either. When i lived in the uk i remember when every soda suddenly had splenda in it, even the non diet ones. I enjoy an energy drink everyday and was pissed. That was that for me and i only drank coffee the remaining time i lived there.
@@Billybloop Had the opposite effect for me. It helped me stick to a 20-24 hour intermittent fasting to lose 80 pounds. Was crazy how easy it made sticking to a 1800-2000 calorie intake.
Reminds me so much of how the vaping epidemic started in high schools, in the same way you can justify a diet coke over a regular one because of the sugar content. People would constantly be talking about vaping “not being as bad” as smoking bc of the lack of carcinogenic material… you’re still addicted to nicotine either way.
I just started cutting out Coke Zero/Diet Dr Pepper except on the weekends and I feel lot better now for doing it. Turns out, if I want diet soda, that really just means I’m thirsty (drinking seltzer helps but plain water is also imperative for good health and hydration) and I’d also end up eating other sweets since my stomach wasn’t satisfied in getting diet soda when it was receiving signals saying “Food is coming!!”…when it wasn’t. And, yeah, I also experienced the same withdrawal symptoms when I tried to quit diet soda cold turkey a few years ago. It doesn’t help that Coca Cola is an absolutely abhorrent company that’s been known to kick people off of their land to seize water and hiring a militia in Colombia to advance their business in the region…
Water is so extremely key. Half my hunger was actually thirst. Which I had always heard. Turns out I just need even more than I thought. I drink a gallon and a half to 2 daily now.
I don't touch soda pop of any kind, it's all poison. When I was a kid, my grandma was addicted to diet Coke, and when she quit, her gums bled for weeks. She quit smoking and alcohol years before Diet Coke, and she said quitting Diet Coke was more physically and mentally harder than either of those. As an adult, I feel so bad for coworkers I see addicted to it, but people love their drugs...I mean soda pop.
I have chronic migraines and I've been trying to figure out what some of my triggers are. Turns out the near month long migraine I'd been having was because I'd have a diet coke in the morning before work because I didnt have time to make coffee. Cut that out (and some other things) and my migraines have gone down from daily to around just one per month or less. Its honestly incredible how much cutting out any artificial sugars and drinking more water helps.
omg i also have chronic migraines! i feel you on that. once i cut down on diet coke and other life style changes (reducing stress etc.) i went from a migraine every few days to once every few months to a year. i hope you recover well and have a reduction in your migraines. take care!
Chronic migraines here. Changes in diet can make such a HUGE difference! I've never liked diet coke (imo it tastes nasty), but cutting back on artifical sweeteners seriously helped. I still get migraines, but I don't get them nearly as often as I used to. Exercise and working towards a minimal stress environment has also helped quite a bit. On a side note, I did used to drink regular coke, eventually cut back on it, then cut it out without realizing it. Now I can't stand the taste of it!
I used to get ocular migraines and constant shortness of breath. Stopped drinking soda all the time and it seemed to go away completely around that time, hasn't been a problem since. I still drink a small amount occasionally with meals but nothing more. It was a terrifying experience, having my vision slowly fade away completely into blackness for a while, and my entire body would go numb as well. It would feel like I was in a sensory deprivation chamber. Then when all of that ceased my senses would come back and I'd have a pounding headache so bad that it felt like my head would explode. This only happened occasionally, but the shortness of breath was more or less all the time. I felt like I was suffocating but I wasn't. Hasn't bothered me since though. Side note, I saw multiple doctors who thoroughly studied me, who couldn't find anything wrong and recommended I go to the ER for a more detailed evaluation. I did, and after many tests they essentially asked me what I was doing there. I was, and still am, in perfect health. My dad is actually allergic to aspartame, so I kinda wonder if maybe that has something to do with it. But idk, this is all just my speculation, it does seem related.
it's always crazy to me the amount of people that think they don't have a caffeine addiction but are pounding like 4-5 plus sodas a day. lol bro you're out pacing me and my bad energy drink habit!
I struggled with an ED for many years, and when I was at my lowest, I though diet coke was making me feel sick. It may have been psychosomatic or me being hyper aware of the ill effects of malnutrition on my body that I incorrectly attributed to diet coke, but I started feeling better when I stopped drinking it (though my other habits hadn't yet changed).
When I was a model in the early 2000s, a lot of the girls I worked with's daily "breakfast" would consist of a Diet Coke or black coffee with Splenda, a cigarette & maybe a celery stalk with some cottage cheese, for the less strict ones. I will forever associate it with unhealthy habits for that reason, & I fear it would trigger a relapse into my _own_ ED I had in those days, just from the associated memories around it, so I don't touch it.
Seeing your first name got it to click that y'all are talking about eating disorders. I was wondering what Diet Coke had to with Erectile Disfunction, because I saw "ED" in several of the posts.
I have never seen my mom drink anything except for Diet Coke, to me it tastes like licking a rusty metal pole and never understood why people liked it. I appreciate the video very informative.
I also binged most all of Kiana's content recently. I've learned a ton and been taking notes. Love how authentic the videos comes off as. I feel like there is a lot grifty untrustworthy health gurus out there. Also doesn't help how much dry and boring health/fitness content out there that isn't very useful.
This was my father just a few years ago, he was drinking 3 or 4 diet cokes a day on average. The back seat of his car and just about every flat surface in his office had a layer empty cans or bottles. Finally he woke up one day and decided that feeling bloated all the time from so much carbonation wasn't worth it so he just up and quit. Even if there aren't any calories, consuming that much of anything will still make someone feel like crap.
I was drinking caffeine free Diet Coke for a long time and ended up in the ER with bad heart palpitations when I quit drinking it abruptly. On a positive note I lost 50 lbs pretty fast when I quit..my appetite reduced in half.
@@2cvlt740 yes..I notice a few days after quitting I eat a lot less. Just aspartame in general..like if I start drinking or eating anything with aspartame I start wanting food all the time even when I’m not hungry
For me as an European, its weird to even think to have one soda/day. Like man, you can have free tap water that doesn't contain much harmful chemicals as EU has strict laws (unlike USA). Also, any soda has to contain conservants (not always good for your body), food colour, even the artificial sweetner is sus. I don't know, better to not be addicted to anything (ofc sugar is in many stuff but regulating that helps too)
It all makes sense now. I’ve never been able to stop drinking Diet Coke, and it’s gotten to the point where I get anxious if I don’t have it in my fridge. But one thing I’ve noticed is that I cannot stand the taste of full sugar coke. I can taste all the sugar in it and it makes me ill.
I'm the same. I won't drink normal Coke when they serve it to me by mistake at the restaurant. But I can actually make a detour to find a shop and buy diet Coke.
I was the same way when I used to drink sugar-free redbull all the time. The normal ones would taste unbearably sweet, even though compared to most drinks its still fairly bitter.
yes! same thing here, i think it has to do with the mouth feel. with real sugar you can feel the heavy syrupy grossness, but diet coke is much closer to water and it doesn't have the same cloying or sticky feeling.
Yeah I feel like this was missing from the video. Before I started drinking diet Sodas I remember how if I drank too much of the sugar filled ones then I would feel sick. Now tasting regular coke and other sodas their sweetness is cloying.
I used to be heavilty addicted to Diet coke and other diet pops. I got a Soda Stream which has helped. I realized I love the carbonation because it made it feel like it bubbled away the food in my mouth (lol sorry). If you are struggling with Diet Coke addiction, I suggest club soda. It's an adjustment but it's fun to add different fruits, or herbs like mint to make it taste good.
I've worked in the restaurant industry for almost 20 years. It is a well known fact from servers, that a single person will almost, 90% of the time, drink 2 to four diet cokes in one sitting. I always had a pitcher of diet coke prepped, because it was so common to refill. I've also noticed this with Dr. Pepper drinkers, as well as Mountain Dew drinkers.
@@pebblebrookbooks4852 I actually like both and have no preference between the two brands (with Dr. Pepper itself though I prefer regular over diet, since diet is starting to taste like soda going flat, in the same vein as Diet Coke).
I tried to quit so many times, and I knew I had to because I had a lot of chronic pain and autoimmune issues that the diet coke could not have been good for. But every time I tried to stop, I'd feel so cruddy. Then, finally, when I'd decided that I was going to give up diet coke for the new year, I got sick around Christmas. My throat hurt so much I couldn't drink diet coke. I was sick for a week, and when my throat started to feel better, I realized, wait! This could be my chance. I already felt so awful for being sick. Don't drink it. And it's been four or five years now. I was sad for the first TWO YEARS. Every time I wanted to go somewhere that used to make me happy (because of free soda refills), or I wanted to celebrate something, I wanted a diet coke. Or when I sad, I'd think, let me get a diet coke to feel better. It was so hard. But I didn't go back to drinking it, because I knew I'd just go right back up to drink two liters or more a day.
As a type 1 diabetic, this was my go to for years, up until the start of last year. After not having it for months, I had some diet coke on my birthday, and the day after ended up on the toilet for a couple hours. My body genuinely cannot deal with the artificial sweeteners in this stuff anymore.
7:29 those are caffeine withdrawal symptoms, I was drinking 3 cups of death wish (about 22 cups of coffee[2.2g of caffeine]) for like 3 months straight every day, and yea, bad headaches, nausea, anger etc.
Im not addicted to any sodas, but I am however addicted to coffee. I came across this video at 2am, because I am up having acid reflux problems. The same night I decided I at the very least need to cut down on coffee. Thanks for this educational video on habits and addiction!
Not sure how OP did cutting back on coffee, but anyone with acid reflux should eliminate caffeine completely. Go decaff if necessary. It's one reason why I don't drink diet coke (the other being that it tastes terrible, diet ginger ale is my preference).
I used to be insanely addicted to diet coke. The first thing I would do when I got up in the morning was drink a diet coke. And I would drink several more throughout the day or I would end up with a stabbing headache. After years of this, I finally got over my addiction and I haven't had a drop of pop in over 2 years. Life is so much better now.
that's my current situation with coffee. I traveled to Europe one summer and the first morning there I was about to have a panic attack because I was having a hard time finding a cup. Now I travel with caffeine pills just in case. Yes, I am aware this is a problem.
I would like to add something that my endocrinology professor has been pointing out in our classes about artificial sweetners is that they signal the release of insulin for their sweet taste but since there is no glucose for the insulin to bind it just stays there, that could lead to various bad things including insulin-resistance AKA diabetes, which also could explain the high number of cases of this disease we have seen in the last 2-3 decades
@@rbrtwhill Alot of money of the zero sugar industries goes into it *wink wink. Also it's still on research -> evidence level and even specialists disagree with each other but there is always the anonymous guy behind a screen with the uncontestable google source to be absolutelly sure and contradict everyone.
@@henriquetomio If you actually look into it, all of the anti-aspartame research has been published by one group and despite many attempts never been reproduced. It is in fact the sugar industry who is funding falsified research, not the other way around.
Artificial sweeteners obviously do not trigger insulin release because if they did, diet soda would trigger hypoglycemic episodes, which has never been reported.
Diet coke in can only is most refreshing drink ever Even though in last 40/yrs I drank over 56'000 cans I still drink about six cans per day love it not hurting health feel fine at 70
There was a time when I used to drink diet coke, I stopped now and have cut soda entirely from my diet. In hindsight, while I've never really considered it during the time when I drank diet coke, I can remember a constant yearning for it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it an addiction, though maybe because I don't really have an addictive personality and I've never done any addictive substance, but I'd always have this unique taste of diet coke in my mouth that I would always want to satiate. Very strange... thanks for the video!
Watching this leaves me in a state of wow. I always hated the taste of diet soda and could never understand why people drank it to begin with. Now I know!
I drink one when going to work for lunch for convenience and occasionally at night. I am an addictive personality, but never formed one for this soda. So take it all with a grain of salt. Drink water because it’s pretty good (most of the time) for you, but enjoy a pop once in a while without fear. People get way too worked up about pretty much anything these days. Then again, I drink caffeine-free Diet Coke when I drink soda. It tastes better than Diet Coke and and actually hydrates you.
@@Unkn0wn1133 What for? I don’t consider a diet soda once a weekday to be a problem in any way. The coffee? That’s another thing all together, but related. Curb your wokeness! 😇
Honestly i love diet coke, it helped me drop sugary beverages in general, and eventually my sugar cravings were pretty much gone. i almost never eat sweets any more and i barely even drink diet sodas because i lost my deoendency on the craving for soda by using diet sodas to help with the transition. i used to go through half a 12 pack every day of coke before switching to zero/diet. now i mostly drink water out of my growler and occasionally have a diet soda with food if i go out somewhere.
me personally ive bever been healthy, i am and have been overweight my whole life. diet soda helped me take control of my life and lose the first 20 pounds (going to the gym helped even more). i was drinking almost 1000 calories a day of just SODA. diet coke changed that and i started seeing the results. seeing the results helped me realize I choose what i put in my body. and since then ive made healthier and healthier choices for myself. the transition has been gradual but now i go to the gym 3x a week and drink water 90% of the time
before making that change i really didnt think anything i did would make a difference but switching to diet soda really helped ingrain to me that i am in control. it really started because i refused to drink soda with sugar in it. so when there wasnt diet soda available i just drank water. eventually, this led to me just just drinking more water and slowly weaning off diet soda. i have maybe, 2 every couple weeks at most? I dont even really drink sugary juices anymore either. im pretty much just on water now. Water is definitely king, but dont hate people on diet sodas. and if youre on diet sodas, dont stop there! you can change so much more about your diet (combined with an hour of activity a day) and see great results! (not advocating for keto) but keto bread thats like 40 calories has been a small cut to my intake that has been helping plenty. i eat plant based hotdogs now (60 calories as opposed to 130 calorie ones i ate before) and these little changes have been great because i eat til im full but i dont feel guilty
I admitted years ago that I'm addicted to diet coke. I managed to quit for a few months but went right back to drinking only diet coke. The only way my addiction manifests itself is that when I stop, I will get a horrible headache on the third day after quitting, which can not be remedied by any painkillers in any amount. Also, regular water now just makes my stomach turn.
For some reason, I've never really gotten into Diet Coke (or even just diet sodas in general). The main reason is I always found the taste of diet sodas really gross (and it turns out I'm not the only one who found that taste gross). As I got older, I've even slowly grown to dislike a majority of sugary drinks like sodas and nowadays, I prefer having water and (unsweetened) tea as my go-to-beverage. I do like a boba drink and some regular soda/sugary drinks sometimes though, but I can't imagine consuming more than the equivalent of one can of soda, let alone a liter, a day.
I also think Diet Coke is disgusting. At first it tastes the same, but as soon as you swallow it, it leaves this awful flavor in your mouth that you just cant take another sip
Thank you Kiana! I was actually avoiding watching this video because I didn't want anything to come between me and my precious Diet Coke. But now I'm going to take the time to reevaluate my zero-calorie soda consumption going forward. Please continue to post great content!
I'm currently crying because I'm out of diet coke, trying to convince myself that I don't need it but I'm close to tear my flesh apart from desperation.
My mom was ADDICTED to Diet Coke. It went from a joke to making the family angry when she’d sneak her third big gulp of the day. Even when I researched aspartame and relayed the info, it wasn’t enough. While we can’t specifically correlate, she did get breast cancer (she’s fine now) and I still stand by her Diet Coke addiction being a factor.
Omg please do a video with the bits you cut out!! I wanna know all of it and your research is always impeccable! Also it makes me laugh how many fat activists think they’re anti capitalist but don’t acknowledge how food corporations have engineered food to be addictive and cheap with high energy and low nutrient density. This is a perfect example of it 🙃
I was getting brain fog, back acne and digestive issues since I started drinking diet sodas, it was aspartame. I don't have issues with other artificial sweeteners, if you're having these problems try taking a break for a week or two and see if you get better.
Aspartame is literally poison. It can turn into formaldehyde. My uncle just passed away from stomach cancer. He drank diet coke every day for years. Aspartame puts the DIE in diet.
I never quite understand why im so addicted to diet coke. I like regular coke, but since sugar tax its very expensive. I have no idea why im addicted it doesnt really taste of anything!!
Video went over it pretty well. Caffeine and artificial sweeteners triggers your brain to want it. If its not breaking your bank I wouldnt worry about it. If you feel like its wasting too much of your income, you just need to swap to water, especially since you dont even really like the flavor. Maybe start drinking coffee if you haven't to replace the caffeine you're addicted to.
As a moron who decided to taste something I had personally chemically isolated (seriously bad idea), caffeine is pretty terrible flavour-wise. It's a step down from the taste of bittrex (I don't know why I do this to myself), if not as strong, but its in the same general ballpark. For anyone who doesn't have access to either caffeine pills or lab grade equipment and stupidity, the closest comparison would be to lick a Nintendo switch cartridge.
Actually, I hate the taste of coffee, cola, energy drinks, etc, but when I tried a caffeine water (only water with a bit of caffeine, nothing else in ingredients) I fell in love with it. The little bitterness of the water was doing it for me. Sadly I cannot find it anywhere anymore.
I really loved reading this comment because it meant that at one point not only did you try caffeine, and Brittex, but also had to lick a Nintendo cartridge in order to make this simple example. Right on brother!
Great research you’ve put into this video, appreciate that you didn’t overplay health risks of drinking it without evidence and you just talked about it’s addictive properties, keep up the good work 🥰
I tried my first diet coke a few months ago because I went on a significant diet and I've been hooked since. I went from almost exclusively drinking water to having 1 or 2 diet sodas a day. I actually don't like the taste of aspartame, it's really the fact that it's 0 calories that keeps me drinking it.
It’s Pepsi Max for me. Been obsessed with it for years and if I have to go a day without drinking it I feel pretty physically terrible. I’d never really thought about it, but then I read about how people with unmedicated ADHD often self-medicate in other ways, and had a huge lightbulb moment. I’d always had negative reactions to the stimulant medications, but the caffeine in one can of Pepsi is decidedly less, and you can sip it slowly throughout the day. It’s the only thing that helps me concentrate. So yeah, not saying that’s a factor for everyone, obviously, but it might play a part.
Yeah that’s probably a factor but ADHD also generally makes people much more prone to addiction in general. Tho I know of lots of people who don’t take ADHD meds who self medicate with caffeine or nicotine I think that’s very common Edit: trying to self medicate for ADHD with nicotine doesn’t work out super well for most people cause needing to smoke constantly and having withdrawals all the time is pretty distracting
I am one of those people with an addiction to Diet Coke and I hate it. I know why I shouldn’t drink it, but it’s an urge for me, so difficult to cut off.
So pleased to see a Kiana upload! When I was working for a newspaper and working long hours, I developed a Diet Coke habit. Fascinated to see your take on this.
I am heavily addicted to them...i drink prolly 6 or more cans a day...started drinking them after i quit alcoholism and smokeless tobacco...now my diet coke addiction is worse than i ever remember those being...i cant not have it
This is really interesting. I work at McDonalds and we have two regulars every day that come in just to order a large diet coke.. I thought it was kind of strange there is not one but they are the only two who come just to buy fountain drinks and specifically diet coke. Just thought I'd share
Probably because it's $1 for a large cup. It's pretty convenient if you're too lazy to go to the grocery store to constantly buy soda. I'd never go to McD if they had the standard $3 pricing
One may be my ex… he no shite drink a 2 liter of diet coke every day. It was disgusting. He used to harass me about having a cup of coffee in the morning and being “addicted” to it, as if he wasn’t drinking caffeine all day long 😂
I absolutely love diet coke. It's a new addiction (maybe like one a day) where I used to tell everyone I hated the taste of cola, never drank soda. But I think maybe like 6 months ago I got some with a maccys and really liked it. Gradually started drinking it more and more. And now I have it almost every day. Really interested to see this video as I agree, I think it must me highly addictive cause I honestly don't know why I like it so much. I'm not into soda at all personally, except sugar free energy drinks (I guess that counts technically).
It's got caffeine. Same reason the British are addicted to tea (roughly equivalent concentration vs diet coke), and same reason America is addicted to coffee. It's not a mystery, it's a drug.
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I like that you are your own sponsor. I'm jobless and have to reach out to strangers to help me make rent. I give them artwork in return as a thank you though. So I'm trying the independent route as well! Though as of now I'm still making frames and artwork for the "thank you"'s, so I can't invest in your venture, but as a note of appreciation I didn't skip through the ad portion! I appreciated the mini vacation from in video ads.
I used to only drink diet coke, now i drink diet lemonade that uses much safer sweetners. I was talking to my daughter (13) about how i never drank it while i was pregnant because of the caffine/sweetners. She was like well why do you drink it now.....so i quit. Had ss pretty bad pressure headache for 7 days then was fine.
I do miss it tbh.
Caffine is no good because i have fibromyalgia so i avoid it in all sourses.
Science: "Aspartame is an amino-acid compound that is about 160-200 times sweeter than sugar. Aspartame is absorbed from the intestine and metabolized by the liver to form phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol. Aspartame can contribute to weight gain, obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes mellitus." Aspartame is still processed by the liver and can cause diabetes just like sugar. Here's how normal sugar is processed by the body: First, it is converted to glucose in the liver and introduced into the bloodstream. When glucose levels get too high, the pancreas starts churning out insulin. Insulin converts glucose to fat. The body then stores the fat. Consuming sugar substitutes like Aspartame hides the true amount of sugar consumed because the amount isn't on the label. The daily intake limit for sugar set by the FDA is 40mg but that's the hard limit and should only occasionally be reached maybe once every 6 months. 20mg is about the average daily limit you should strive for. The body needs SOME sugar per day but most people consume 3-6 times the FDA daily limit. Using sugar substitutes does NOT solve the problem of obesity, calorie reduction does NOT factor into losing weight, and the use of substitutes simply hides how much material enters the body. The fact that long-term use of Aspartame has the same results as regular sugar means that the body still considers those substances to be sugar - whether or not the brain is involved. Sugar substitutes basically get to avoid being documented on the label of the food product other than the ingredients list. There are 185mg of Aspartame in a single can of Diet Coke. If you do the math, that amount is effectively equivalent to 29,600 to 37,000mg of sugar in terms of sweetness. That's clearly designed to overload the brain and create an instant addiction. Also, 185mg is already 4.6 times the daily intake limit of sugar as set by the FDA. So Diet Coke is specifically engineered to be addictive by overloading the human body with signals it was never designed to process and the entire product is a giant lie. It has fewer calories, but calories do not create fat. Sugar -> glucose -> insulin -> fat. Removing sugar from the diet = weight loss.
Dozens of studies have linked aspartame to serious health problems, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, seizures, stroke and dementia, as well as negative effects such as intestinal dysbiosis, mood disorders, headaches, migraines and non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Im secretly addicted to Diet Coke now because I can’t get Whitney Houston beautiful voice out of my head
I feel the line "too lazy to pour a glass of water" is scarily true and derserves it's own video, single serving products creates a lot of waste and weird habits
ikr!!!!
Omg, as soon as I started making the time to have a cold pitcher of water in the fridge, or even just a water filter and ice on hand, I was able to cut out sodas entirely. Making healthy alternatives convenient is a big deal.
@@victorialee1307 Your filter comment made me realize something. I've never thought about this because I've grown up in a place where the tap water is safe to drink and like, tastes good? In many places, that's not the case. It's a lot easier to drink water when it's easy to access.
@@myconfusedmerriment Yeah, same. When I was younger, I was really confused why people in the US buys water instead of drinking tap water. And then I heard stories about the water tasting like pool water and people getting sick from it.. and I finally understood.
I didn't know this was a thing and the first thing I think is you guys don't drink enough water 🤣 (not that this is the answer) I couldn't imagine drinking that much diet coke with the water I drink.
I had a SEVERE addiction to Diet Coke. Prior to going into hospital for my eating disorder, I was drinking 6 LITRES A DAY, I couldn’t stop. After not having drunk it the 6 months that I was in hospital, I had a sip of my brothers one day and thought it was absolutely disgusting. The whole thing is equally insane and terrifying.
How though?
Howd u get into drinking it?
regular coke is wAaay better
Holy shit, that's insane. Glad you overcame that.
So sorry to hear you suffered from erectile dysfunction
This really got me feeling happy that I got into the habit of drinking water over everything else. Now that I think about it, I usually just go with water because it's my default drink.
Same! Stopped drinking soda years ago after drinking 32 ounces or so daily, and lost so much weight with just that change thst it convinced me to give it up as a regular drinking option forever. Now for me it’s an occasional treat, usually in the form of a mixed alcoholic drink.
I like water but I do occasional drink 0 calories soda sometimes
I'm addicted to the feeling I get every night I chug a glass of water. My body fucking loves it.
@@johnbonham1980 NOP WHEN YOU SPARK THAT WEED AFTER WORK ICE COLD COKE ZERO +ZERO CAFFEINE
IS THE BEST
@@johnbonham1980 literally part of my strat to prevent overeating is consuming water. i have a really big water bottle (when i say big, it's like 2..5 liters) which is the recommended daily amount. i sip on it through the day, and i drink a glass of water before meals and a half glass in the middle of the meal. helps me feel full, i rarely overeat these days. i have lost around 4kg in 1.5 weeks so far.
I am so glad that all my mom gave me was water or milk. I only had sugary drinks or food at birthday parties or holidays. My snacks were tomatoes, cucumbers, or green peppers with some garlic salt. As an adult I find soda disgusting and I am doing the same for my children. It amazes me how many people are astonished when my children ask for water over juice or soda when we go to their houses. Why are so many people ignorant about nutrition and well being? This seems to be a pretty important issue to address in our society.
My mom usually only gave me soda as a desert and we drank it on a special occasion.
I was a picky child and never wanted to try soda, when I got a bit older I new it was healthy and decided to just keep avoiding it. 21 and never had any soda besides a sprite when I was 12.
I find that so interesting. The things my parents restricted the most were the things I obsessed over as an adult. I think if my parents were strictly healthy with me as a kid i would be worse off than I already am now lol
its funny that there is a comment right above the comment about a person who was addicted to coke and thought it happened because their parents did let them drink soda very rarely
ig everyone are different, so don't be surprised if your kids would not have the same experience later in life
and i would say juice isn't that bad to not drink it at all, no need to be too restrictive
Only had sugary drinks and food on birthdays? Sounds straight up miserable😂😂 You turned out good but it could’ve ended horribly for some other people.
Because a family member is an engineer, they always complained that diet drinks rotted the drains they were building. I’m pretty sure that was just to scare me off drinking them but it definitely worked as a tactic!
If you have a toilet, sink, shower or tub covered with lime scale and grime line it with toilet paper and soak the toilet paper in regular coke, leave it for 4 hours and the grime is easily scrubbed off with a sponge. Disturbing!
Well it is kinda acidic and the bubbles do help break down crud. My dad uses it to clean corrosion from car batteries...and it has a semi-decent use as toilet bowl cleaner if you're on a budget. It can corrode the enamel on your teeth with excessive use (but so can coffee) besides that maybe it was just to scare you.
They weren't trying to scare you off. Coke can also be used to clean horseshoes!! When we were little, my cousin lost a tooth and left it in a glass of diet coke overnight (science experiment from our mothers) and in the morning her tooth was literally dissolved. That was enough to keep me away from the stuff.
@@TimeQuxxn wholly crap! I always thought it made my teeth feel gritty....but man....that's crazy....it was completely gone??
@@daniellethaxton6800 we thought that at first, but the cup was in our room the entire night and she is a lightttttttt sleeper. If they did that some good trickery
I believe it has to do with the ''o calorie''. Sugar is highly addictive, and seeing 0 calories wired us to completely shut down our guilt or worries .
Really cause when I see 0 calories I go... "oh god what lab was this made in, imma go buy some carrots instead"
@@gm2349 same honestly
@@limemaid2003 Lmao that and the " Made with REAAAAAAL ingredients now" always turns me off
@@gm2349 yeah same here. the most ill drink is zero sugar coke because DAMN is that new formula good but i rarely drink it so i usually just drink some good ol cherry coke which is my favorite soda right next to barqs. Funnily enough i used to think barqs was a diet soda cause of the can color
@@gm2349 I guess the key is to instill paranoia into people like this, because that’s my reaction. I refuse to drink or eat anything that says 0 calories (unless it’s like water/carbonated water)
The withdrawal symptoms (headaches and light sensitivity) could be from the caffeine though. A lot of people get migraines when they don't drink coffee every day.
Exactly, I am not addicted to diet coke, I am addicted to caffeine. If I don't drink coke, I'm fine. But if I don't get caffeine, I get headaches.
This is absolutely right. A very small fraction of people are actually allergic to aspartame and they would have a reaction to drinking diet cola. Not stopping it. The addiction is simply to the caffeine.
The geniuses at drugs'r'us put caffeine in some painkillers for that reason. Gotta get at them from all sides ;-)
Yep. That's literally it
Yep, I don't like the taste of sugar free lollies and I can take or leave sprite zero. It's the caffeine for me. And the taste...stupid taste. It's not marketed in Australia much at all
I switched to diet soda after being diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes. After a year, I realized I was drinking twice as much soda as I used to. Last month, I decided to quit drinking it. After a few days, I became very agitated and full of anxiety. I was angry and depressed. It took a month for these withdrawal symptoms to pass.
Back when I had a Diet Coke addiction, it was definitely because of the aspartame! I couldn’t get enough of that artificial sugar, whether it was diet sodas or sugar-free candies!
When I read Aspartame or Phenylalanine I see addictive cancerous poison lol.
It's the bubbles and acidic feel for me.
I have a friend that was soo addicted she ended up in the hospital with Aspartame poisoning! It was really sad. Luckily she was able to get better.
Aspartame used to be used as ant poison back in the day.
I get a massive headache from any aspartame, which makes it very easy for me to avoid.
I am a waiter and can honestly say some of the strongest reactions I've ever had is telling people we are out of artificial sweeteners or diet coke, it is not often but sometimes we are out of those and people react "too me" outrageously dramatic but to them it is the worst thing I could say
how incredibly strange
Oooh, do you have any stories you care to share? I'm a messy bitch who loves to judge ppl; feed me, Seymour.😃
wacky but I get it, I get bummed when they say "would diet pepsi be okay" and it's like they just broke up with me or something.
Sound like junkies
that'd because they dont want the calories
I’ve heard on some psych podcasts that habits themselves can be *actually* addictive, as in, our bodies can go through physical withdrawals when abstaining from certain behaviors. Of course the severity is on a much different level than for instance, opioid or alcohol withdrawal, but the fact you can experience physical withdrawal symptoms by giving up a habit just blows my mind.
We are creatures of habit
If you ever remember the name of that podcast, let us know because that is fascinating. 😯
That's true. For example, some people can't abstain from smartphones for some time without displaying signs of agitation, shortness of attention span and difficulty concentrating, among others. Even when those people don't really have important things that they really shouldn't miss out on on their phones (like work or relationship stuff)
This is so true. Just doing something often is enough to bring us comfortable. It's expected and we look forward to it. Getting rid of it would totally make us agitated. It makes sense.
For me with smoking cigarettes, it’s almost entirely the habit itself that I find addictive. I may have an initial nicotine buzz if I haven’t smoked in a while but after that, it’s entirely the action and ritual associated with it.
My brother went to new york on a school trip and when he came back he said the coke drinking was wild. He went into a fast food and both the small, medium and large coke were a dollar so he obviously got the large. But it was so massive he had to share it with his friends, and he came back just being sick of coke in general.
Oh that's another component, the huge portions and the cheap price, why get the small one if you can get more bang for your buck with the big one? I'm talking about fast food in general btw
@@EmyN and the movie theater
I'm embarrassed to say, I usually order two large diet Cokes, because one isn't enough. I don't know what's wrong with me, am I just really thirsty?
I am from America but I went to South Korea on a trip once. I bought the Diet Coke there at the store because I drink it regularly in the USA. I started getting severe headaches and I couldn't understand it but once I got back I pieced together that their Diet Coke is not the same as the one in the USA. It seems like the USA drinks are way more powerful but in other countries they are regulated in how much caffeine and such they must put in it.
@@Dan-di9jdDamn American food is probably one of the least regulated food markets in the world. It‘s always crazy how such a important thing could be left so unregulated.
Im grateful for my parents being anti soda growing up. It wasn't allowed in my house. So I never got accustomed to drinking soda on the daily and never developed the habit. And now as an adult, I drink a lot of water and actually do NOT like the taste of soda! Its always funny to other people that I do not lie soda, but its just how I grew up.
Agree! I grew up in the USSR, so we didn’t have any tasty soda and the one we had in the stores were bought on very rare occasions. So now am totally indifferent.
Me too, soda drinks were only allowed in birthday parties, and special occasions, I thank my family for this!
In my case, I just never liked soda even when it was offered. And as such, when I saw a video of otters reacting similarly negatively to carbonation, I totally related, because for me, carbonation=yuck.
Same! I also realized how grateful I am that as an adult I don't really have these urges bc my childhood. My mom would only allow me to consume one main dessert a day so if I drank soda that would be it. It only lasted a while and it wasn't strictly enforced, but it helped me really understand that sugary drinks are harmful and I often think before consuming. I also don't like it so much lol
My parents are easy about soda but i never got addicted. It's just a game of change me thinks
For the withdrawal reaction, I’m guessing it’s actually probably related to caffeine consumption more so than the aspartame. My friend who drank coffee every morning, then stopped drinking it for 2 months, experienced withdrawal symptoms like the ones you listed for 2-3 weeks. (I am not a scientist tho lol, this is just a theory)
Yes caffeine withdrawal
No, I'm sure it's the aspartame too, I drink other sodas with aspartame and they DON'T have caffeine in them
It’s kind of like how in Germany Weed dealers will combine tobacco and Weed to get customers physically addicted and to keep them coming back. I wouldn’t be surprised if coke-cola the company intentionally keeps caffeine in their drink for this reason.
@@homosexualitymydearwatson4109 What kinda weed they selling? And who tf buying? I get selling to some stupid teenagers, but like, any real stoner going to know something aint right with that bag.
@@DragonMoth34 did you miss where I stated this was a Germany thing and not America? Idk I’m American, i have no idea what (some) Europeans put in their weed. Clearly weed here and the culture is different.
Karen was enough to make me NEVER buy soda of any kind ever again. Thank you Karen.
She looks like Herman Munster.
She does seem like a pretty cool lady though
@@archygrey9093 I liked her! I'm 52 though so I don't think that having dared to age is a crime.
Do you smoke crack instead
Karen looks like she has cancer. Or is going to get it - soon.
For anyone struggling with quitting soda be it diet or their full calorie counterparts, I highly suggest slowly phasing out the habit by drinking sparkling water instead. Sparkling water mixed with a bit of (real and not packaged shit) juice makes for a healthier alternative that scratches that same itch. (Obviously don’t drink to much juice or you risk just having the same amount of sugar you would anyway)
Hella late hut seconded
Child of divorce here. My mom was a "70s hippie", hardly wore shoes, lots of sundresses, and so much kale im still conviced shes 80% rabbit.
But pops was th3 other way. Gave up the hippie life to get into the street department/firefighter career and would always have a 12 pack of soda at home. If i stayed with him 4 nihhts a week, all 12 sodas would be gone
At 16 i wanted to quit. My Metabolism was insane so i was still skinny but i hated how soda made me feel enslaved to it. Sparkling water, just Le Croix unflavored, saved my ass. The bubbles and crack of a cam replaced what i n3eded
Now im an alcoholic with 2 years and 3 backslides and i can say my casual relationship woth soda helped me chug hard liquer and not notice for many many years
Hope you can get over it bro...@@Lord0fHunger
For many years, I drank a Diet Coke (or Coke Zero) nearly every afternoon, until my dental hygienist told me it was ruining my teeth. That finally got me to kick the habit.
You dodged a bullet there mate. I drank Coke almost exclusively during my childhood and it wrecked my whole row of front teeth! They basically rotted away and I had to get a full veneer or whatever you call it at age 23!
I know that sodas ruin teeth however I don’t understand how you got affected so badly. My boyfriend has been drinking multiple cans of Pepsi every day for over 30 years and his teeth are very good. Every time he goes to the dentist they do nothing to him except the cleaning because he doesn’t even have cavities. So I’m not sure how one can daily could have caused such damage to you
@@yoursugarismine Coke (more so than Pepsi or other sodas) is the problem. It's the acidity.
@@chorabari I didn’t know, I’m lucky cos I only drink a Fanta maybe once or twice a year but I do notice that when I do drink it I then want more so it’s def got something that is addictive
@@chorabariI don’t buy it. I suspect genetics plays a large role. I’ve drank more than 2 litres of Diet Coke every day for 30 years and I’ve never even had a cavity.
I was up to 6 cans a day, then got snowed in for 3 weeks and didn't have any, forced to quit and I was so sick for like 2 weeks, hot sweats, flu like symptoms, aches, I went through some kind of terrible withdrawl haven't touched it since. I've also learned a lot about the lack of ethics of the company, buying all the clean water in small. poor villages, so people have to buy coke.
Ya I watched this documentary on this village in Mexico and they have the highest consumerism of coke and I think diabetes. They have no fresh water because their water is contaminated with e coli. Coke company runs near that town takes the good water and they basically live on coke. Even cook with it. It's so sad. Death toll for diabetes is horrible
@@Gaibreel Yes! What makes it ok to take all the water from a village? In the old west, they were the evil villians diverting the creek, and they usually got shot and the towns folk had a celebration.
Now it seems like anything goes if there's a dollar to be made. And the way the stocks work, they can't just make a nice profit in an area and be happy, they have to continually grow. So they grow and grow without an ethical foundation, and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And then they can convince many of us to blame the poor, rather than blame the profiteers. And they replace food with poison, and skyrocket the costs of drugs and medical care. People who are struggling to survive don't have a lot of time to study the system and find out it's rigged and then have enough energy to complain.
Got a little long, oops.
@@Gaibreel do you know the name of the documentary?
Noooo are you serious ? 😳 shit I need to stop drinking diet coke
my friend had to quit diet coke because she was in a really bad financial situation and she was also miserable af! it’s pretty horrifying to think about, really.
I grew up with a crunchy mom and we never drank soda. As a kid I was jealous of the kids who got soda all the time, but now I realized that they were forming an addiction/dependency. I had to watch them struggle and fail to regain control of their health as they developed health problems.
I knew a girl who exclusively drank diet coke and she was prediabetic before she hit 26. It was so hard for her to drink water (or anything that wasn't soda) at that point that she struggled to drink one glass of water a day.
same here, all those things were prohibited at my house and whilst I would indulge during my teen years or when I went to my friends' house, nowadays I find them disgusting. I am so lucky that tropical fruits are a prefect dessert for me
I knew a kid growing up who was never allowed candy or any drink but water. It went the opposite way for her. She was so obsessed with soda, juice and candy, she'd steal the stuff from other people's lunch boxes and nobody wanted her for play dates because she would beg you to ask for juice, soda or candy non stop. I think she got herself addicted to sugar when leaving home just because nobody could tell her anymore that she couldn't.
what is a crunchy mom
@@darnguccitoast362 Granola, health conscious, Refered to as tree huggers - for there only natural - Whole Foods approach.
I didn’t have crunchy parents but we just never had soda in the house on a regular basis and I’m glad for it because I think I could have developed an addiction to it. I’ll have it on occasions when it’s around but it’s not something I think about and crave.
I figured out it was addictive over 20 years ago when I worked at a company that kept a fridge in the break room stocked with several kinds of soda but bought easily 6 times as many cases of Diet Coke because we went through them so fast. It wasn't just people watching their weight who were addicted. Everyone was. I finally quit cold turkey and had a terrible headache for 3 days when I did. Later I found that if I made an exception and had a Diet Coke, I'd quickly get hooked again and had to go through quitting all over again. I just had to not drink it ever. It's so bad for your teeth and your sugar metabolism. Really messes you up. We used to joke at that job that they were putting cocaine in the diet coke again like they used to do with the original Coca cola. Don't know what it is, but I agree it's addictive.
I used to have a diet soda addiction, and as you said, it was entirely because the whole "zero calories" thing made it feel healthy. A medical condition forced me to stop drinking it all cold turkey for two weeks, and I haven't been able to go back. It just tastes like battery acid. Probably one of the best things that could've happened to me - I feel much better without it in my life!
I never liked soda the high amount of sugar makes me put it down ain't no way in hell that's going in my body
o n e c a l o r i e
I thought diet drinks were for type one diabetics, when I was little.
Sodas were first parties
@@ejaster6704 I knew a man addicted to dog Pepsi and gained 100 lbs
bullshit
Not yet watched the video, but Diet Coke literally made me so so sick for over a year and I didn’t realise it until I stopped drinking and had horrid withdrawal for over a month after. Best transition I’ve ever made. Less weight gain, reduced appetite, no more headaches or dizzy spells, no more energy crashes, no more insane cravings for more, no more high/ irregular heart rate and pressure. I believe it’s most likely the aspartame or something inside of it, as I still drink caffeine and feel heaps better
Was genuinely very hard to come off of the stuff
Well this explains a lot.. for instance my constant food cravings
The taste 😵
You could be intolerant to aspartame. I found out I was when I switched from normal cola to zero. After a couple of days drinking zero I started to get sicker and sicker. I stopped drinking it a month and felt good again. Started the zero again and got sick the second time as well.
After that I experimented once with non-caffeine diet drinks with aspartame and also got sick from those.
(It was so bad the first time when I didn't know, that the fourth day my stool came out almost white... So that's clearly not good.)
didn't know you can gain weight drinking ZERO calorie soda
One thing I believe is important to note is that a lot of people that become addicted happen to be so because they are trying to quit some other addiction. They don't work on the root of the problem; rather, they switch around thinking that doing this is more healthy than whatever they were doing before.
Yeah, exactly! My aunt used to smoke usual cigarettes 🚬, now she vapes, but it's exactly the same as smoking! Addictions really kill.
I just like Coke myself. I always have even when I was a small boy. When I was little I would steal a Coke if I had to.
@@human_70 no, vaping is the lesser of two evils. if you already are addicted to smoking than vaping is a very good alternative for awhile then hopefully you can quit vaping as well or switch to nicotine gums or patches and then eventually get off of that.
now if you don't smoke at all and don't have a nicotine addiction then you shouldn't vape.
I'd rather be addicted to diet soda than normal soda or coffee.
@@MajinRixch I mean, I guess, but it still isn't good
I always found the craze for diet soda interesting. No calories is a perk but it’s just so sweet compared to regular soda (at least coke and Pepsi)
NO, regular soda is much sweeter tasting.
Diet soda is quite literally, scientifically speaking, less sweet than regular soda. Like by objective measurements (and yes, they do have objective measurements for sweetness!) "Zero" (technically false, but close enough lol) calorie sweeteners are usually significantly sweeter per gram than their natural full calorie counterparts, but usually contain flavor profiles most people find unpleasant. It's why Stevia never caught on as a popular sweetener. Stevia has a distinct, medicinal aftertaste.
Aspartame and sucralose are widely considered the best tasting "zero" calorie sweeteners, but unfortunately aspartame came along about a decade too early and got a bad rap as being dangerous, despite being just as safe as sucralose, and despite BOTH sucralose and aspartame being SIGNIFICANTLY safer than actual sugar.
@@marcusmiro7481 How are pesticides significantly safer than sugar?
@@SM-tj4jc aspartame is not a pesticide. I try to stay away from the stuff for other reasons, but bullshit is bullshit.
@@SM-tj4jc There are no pesticides in artificial sweeteners, buddy.
As someone that both smokes and regularly consumes energy drinks, I can 100% confirm that anything containing large amounts of caffeine can very much be habit forming, especially when consumed ritually once a day.
You wont have the same long term withdrawal symptoms like you do with nicotine, but it does hit like a truck when you cut it out completely.
It would be interesting to compare diet drinks that aren't caffeinated and still have sweeteners Vs ones that have both Vs coffee
I used to smoke and still felt somewhat superior because I didn’t drink soda. Still do.
Sending best hopes you're able to beat cigarette addiction💕
@@eleanormason2647 Exactly, I'd like to see a study of that. I have a feeling the "aspartame" withdrawal symptoms are just caffeine withdrawal ones projecting and forming into a placebo effect with aspartame.
I feel it works this way, if one drinks diet sodas with caffeine a lot with diet sodas and drinks that don't contain caffeine sprinkled in as off days/weeks, they will be withdrawing from caffeine during the time they're going caffeine free/extreme trace of caffeine (I just recalled that [with coffee especially] you can't make it completely caffeine free, this might not apply to sodas though since it can be made mechanically, via machines, without caffeine*). *I feel like the not completely caffeine free applies only to tea, coffee, and chocolate which naturally contain caffeine
@@PinkAgaricus yea, and the reason people seem to be particularly addicted to Diet Coke might be because it’s calorie free and people drink it more readily without hesitation. I really doubt it’s the artificial sweeteners when caffeine is so much more obviously addictive
My aunt and cousin brought diet Cokes to my uncles wedding and cracked them open the minute we sat down the reception. It was really weird. My dad called it out jokingly and they got offended…who gets offended over something like that unless it’s an issue?? 😭😂
@@KayetlinAlexander it’s possible. But I’m pretty sure my cousin got drunk that night 🤣 who knows, it was years ago.
@@KayetlinAlexander I know, 20 years ago I had to attend a group therapy and one guy there was a former alcoholic and would carry around a 2 liter of diet coke where ever he went, but the funny part is he kinda cradled it in his arm like a baby...
Ppl get very touchy about that nasty dc shit.
Regular coke is way healthier in the big picture. Zero calorie fasting kills your metabolism and thyroid function. Calories matter but only in a context. Pop addicts are never obese. If you incorporate a few sugared drinks into your diet you'll lose weight easier and function at a higher level than you ever will with long fasting periods and few carbohydrates. This fad of fasting and living on stress hormones that make you 'feel good' is ridiculous. High energy intake, high expenditure is ideal. Diet Coke tastes awful, it's hard to comprehend being addicted to this.
I used to work at a gas station about 5 days / week. We had a couple probably in their mid 50's that would come in almost every day and buy 6 bottles of 2 liter Diet Pepsi. they both openly admitted they were crazy about drinking it, and really weren't even that physically unfit, but it was obvious they were literally Diet Pepsi addicts. It blows my mind thinking about how they can even drink it that much
I've got a customer at my business who buys about 3 to 4 Diet Pepsi 2 liters every morning, one a time. It's crazy.
@@bossyspaghetti the most fucked up part about that is that they’re buying them one at time wth
As a kid I always thought soft drinks as “spicey water” and never understood why other kids like it. Now I do but I’m still not a fan of the fizz and I’m grateful for that 😂, I avoid it whenever I can
It does leave a after taste.
What do you mean, "whenever you can"? When are you ever not able to avoid soda?
Lmao I call it spicy water too 😂
My mom has been 'addicted' to (storebrand) diet cola for .. as long as I can remember, so at least 29 years. Over the past couple years she's been struggling with chronic fatigue and her doctor told her that her iron levels were way too low (10, when it should be between 50-250). She's been eating fairly healthily and exercising and seemingly doing everything right, but she didn't tell her doctor about her cola consumption. Once she did, everything fell into place. Cola and other caffeine containing drinks break down the iron in your blood. She's now been struggling to get rid of the cola, and even though she's replaced almost all of it with other diet sodas (she doesn't like water at all), she still consumes it every week at least once.
@Nono Chere Please check with your primary physician to see what the best plan is to get your numbers back up. I hope you'll get back to good health soon!
@Nono Same and same. I still don't plan to quit though
Wow this explains a lot. Thank you for sharing this experience your mom went through!!
How do you not like to drink water. I can't even fathom that shit lol
“She doesn't like water at all"
That's the biggest problem with many soda addicts, water isn't something that you should choose to like. It's extremely important to our body.
It's like somebody saying “I don't like breathing". Basically, we don't get to choose because our body needs it.
I hope your mom can overcome it and get better. But water is always the best option.
Haven't consumed any soda since 2019. I noticed that after a month or so my mood was better and had better night's sleep. Losing 20 pounds of belly fat was a plus as well.
If America banned Soda and breakfast cereal we wouldn't have as much obesity as we do.
Meh it just fast food and greasy food to be honest!
@@unknodaemon9220 sugary drinks are like a third of the fast food problem dude
@@aquafighter10 i get diet soda only from 🙄other wise i bring my own water or zero sugar drink
I would love to see limited hours of fast food restaurants (like 10-8), and dine in restaurants with better regulated portions and quality (at least on chain levels), but I’d be dreaming lol
did you drink diet or with sugar?
This video explains why diet coke is addictive, but I didn't really take away the consequences. What are the health complications that can come with diet drinks? Thank you for your content.
Aspartame breaks down in the body as Formaldehyde, and not in small doses, which leads to a greatly enhanced risk of cancer. With that said, Aspartame appears in many products, and we should just flat out be concerned with our consumption of anything in high doses. A few diet cokes won’t kill you, but be wary of drinking loads of it 🤷♀️
@@lesyeuxsansvisage1157 I'mma need a quality source for that claim. or rather, both those claims.
I'm working on one about Aspartame ATM! I try not to lump too many topics in at once these days lol.
@@lesyeuxsansvisage1157 I use aspartame in my coffee all the time, protein deserts, and I also drink some diet drinks.
Idk what it’s doing to my body but it’s dropping BF % and helps me stay in a deficit. I know it’s not amazing for you but it seems pretty benign.
@@lesyeuxsansvisage1157 If you're talking about this famous "diet coke might cause cancer" turned to "diet coke causes cancer" by medias, it was almost non existant
as a diet coke conniseur, this video and the way you presented the message was EXTREMELY effective in educating me and giving me pause to put down the Diet coke.. you are a blessing thank you!!!
In college I worked for a woman who drank copious amounts of regular Coke. One summer she decided to give it up and man, it was like watching someone detox from the other coke. She was so done in she couldn’t play the sport that we participated in for weeks. She was cranky, headachy, and exhausted. It was scary to see.
Caffeine withdrawal can be a real struggle
I know this was a while ago but I went thru the same thing with quitting regular coke too. I naively thought coffee would help. It just kept the headaches kind of at bay. Felt like a serious case of the flu.
Why is everybody in the comments so surprised that caffeine withdrawal sucks?
I’ve never had trouble with being overweight, the opposite, I’ve struggled to put on weight for as long as I can remember but watching you break down everything and go in to so much detail it absolutely applies both ways due to changing the behaviours. Thank you for your content and I’m currently working on changing those habits so hopefully I’ll be able to comment soon as a heavier man 🙏🏽👏🏽
I wish I had this problem. Big Germanic guy here. Guzzle some egg nog and you'll be right on track :).
@@trompell0 that's rude and dismissive and indicative of the struggles that us underweight people have in society. Would you tell a fat person to put the sandwich down or to skip the cake at a party?
@@trompell0 if it was as easy as eating eggnog people like myself wouldn't be trying or even taking everything under the sun to keep weight on.
If u was female u could get the contraceptive chip installed that makes lot of women gain weight
Heavy lays the heart that can't gain weight.
Kiana is literally a godsend. 🙏 The after taste from Diet Coke is too much for me idk how yall do it.
My mum has always claimed to be addicted to diet come and so kept it away from us our entire life. Now the taste of it is just disgusting to me
Yo for real I don't like any diet sodas for that reason.
I honestly think that's the thing some people find so addicting
omg same, that taste of sweetener is so gross to me
i think if you keep consuming something it just becomes a habit, not to mention the zero calorie reward diet cokes carry…
I was addicted to Pepsi Max. Still makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
As someone who drinks a coke or two on occasion, I think diet coke is absolutely RANCID. I can't remember the last time I voluntarily drank one of those. My best friend, however, has tried to cut back on several occasions and always orders one when we go out together.
Coke zero is amazing. I agree that Diet Coke is terrible
I started off not liking it and then started drinking it as a way to lose weight (because I loved regular coke.) Got used to it and now I genuinely like it. So I think it might be gradual.
I don’t understand this. I quit sugar 9 years ago. I stopped soda one day to the other. Can’t even remember gore it tasted. Why did you quit Diet Coke but continue to drink normal coke? What for?
@@vitorfernandes651 …did you respond to the wrong comment or something? I never drank Diet Coke. I drink coke on occasion. Like maybe once a month?
any type of coke just makes my teeth feel awful, idk how people can stand the teeth-sticking-together feeling.
Sometimes I feel like the only one who finds it bizarre and almost dystopian how every restaurant offers primarily soda as beverages. I get that it's cheapest for them to do that, but since I stopped drinking soda regularly in high school, I can't even imagine downing a whole glass of it with a meal. I would feel so sick afterwards. It's like having birthday cake every night for dinner, that's how strange it is to me, and everyone else accepts it as default.
"dystopian"?? Lmao
Nothing is stopping you from ordering water, juice, lemonade, milk, etc.
Nice to see someone else who quit coke in or shortly after high school lol. I've had A couple sips of coke since then and it's really unbearably sweet - and I have a HUGE sweet tooth, practically nothing is too sweet for me, but coke and Pepsi are. I do have sprite or mountain dew a couple times a month but, like you, can't fathom having multiple soft drinks every day
Because the restaurant chains are owned by soda companies, hence brand exclusivities like coke or Pepsi products
@@andieallison6792 1984 (you can order soda at restaurants)
Totally agree, I found the idea of soda existing and being popular mind blowing. Probably because I never developed the taste for any soda or carbonated drink.
So weird to me considering how I always thought diet coke was like sweet motor oil, I didn't think anyone could get addicted to it
I think diet sodas taste like liquid plastic :p I cannot understand why ppl drink it let alone become addicted to it
yeah i never liked coca cola it tastes awful to me
For me personally, and this sounds super messed up, because it is lol. I started drinking it when I was a young child, under 5 years old. Went from diet pepsi to diet coke, it was what my mother drank, I craved that metallic sour taste all day, I felt literal withdrawal symptoms without it. At my worst I was drinking 4 cans a day, doesn't sound like a lot, but it was awful. I quit cold turkey, and now the taste and even just the smell makes me feel nauseous.
@@felixargyle20 diet sodas taste like sodas diluted with water
@@felixargyle20 frr it tastes disgusting to me idk how anyone would like it so much that they get addicted to it
This video helped me quit drinking soda. I realised how much i drank it, and how it was never as satisfying as i remembered. Now i sometimes have a can and cola tastes metallic, unsatisfying, with that too-sweet flavour that I used to crave.
I switched from fruit juice to diet soda, something I've been hesitating to do for a long time. But I was easily consuming too many calories in juice and then overeating after the inevitable sugar crash happens. I switched to diet soda and the weight started to drop off straight away and continues to do that, to this day.
The ironic thing is that I had to form a bad habit, just to be healthier by losing weight.
(I mostly drink water - it's just for my meal beverages)
Of course you're going to lose weight, it's killing your insides. Just make your own juice or get organic juices and you won't have these issues
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 juice isn’t good for you neither is Diet Coke.
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 juice still has sugar in it, even if its organic fruit juiced yourself. Is it healthier? Yes, but the sugar inside doesn't go away or become healthy just because you're juicing.
@@drinfernodds natural sugars are fucking healthy for us. We need them. Processed sugar is just bad. What's so hard about understanding this? Nice trying to disregard proper diet moderation. Enjoy all that processed corn in everything which is literally poison to us
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 natural sugars are better, but too much of anything is bad
this channel is honestly one of my favorite channels I've stumbled across on the web. It's not just some girl doing minimal research and saying 'fat people dumb just stop eating 🙄', it's a person who had gone through weight loss herself and is doing tons of actual, medical research to help out and inform those who are also trying to lose weight. I'm an overweight girl, not super fat or anything, but I've always wanted to lose weight for cosmetic purposes. I've always been so down on myself and hated the way I looked since I was in elementary. I've started another diet not too long ago along with adopting Kiana's tips, and it's worked. I've been losing weight properly by realizing the psychology of my habits and making an effort to do better.
all in all, this channel is not only entertaining, but incredibly informative and has extremely well put videos. keep up the amazing work Kiana, and thank you for all you've posted and shared for us !!!
It's probably the caffeine in the coke. In my sophomore year of college I drank copius amounts of diet sodas. Quit drinking them and felt off for a few days, then to figure out it was likely the caffeine.
Agreed. The symptoms Kiana listed sounded very much like symptoms of caffeine withdrawal to me (when I cut back on the diet coke I had them myself)
Ik a few ppl who claim to be addicted to caffeine free diet coke though?
@@ameliewiseman744 Those are most likely mental addictions rather than physical. What I'm talking about are physical addictions.
Yeah when she got to the symptom list for aspartame all I saw was caffeine withdrawal symptoms >_>
I'm so glad I decided as a teenager to stop drinking soda. It's so obviously addictive and bad for your health as someone who almost exclusively drinks water. But it just seems normal when you drink it habitually. I still get weird looks when I say I just want water or don't want the combo meal with a soda at a restaurant.
My high school chemistry teacher at the end of the school year stacked all the two litres of diet coke that he drank throughout the school year in the back of the classroom and there was well over 150+ bottles there.
I hope he rinsed them out at least. That's kinda gross🤣
Wow! 😳
I had a therapist years ago that always had to crack a can of Diet Coke open. She was in her seventies and drank several per day, she provided drinks at her practice for her patients partly because she was always opening drinks and felt rude not offering them. Generous lady, super addicted to Diet Coke. I remember talking to her about the different studies out there about the harms and she just shrugged, what’d you gonna do 🤷🏽♀️ she said it was her worst vice so eh beats smoking lol
Is she still alive
That, I kinda get at least. Lots of worse things to be addicted to. Still doesn’t make it healthy, but we each have our poison.
How can you say it beats smoking 😂 like just because the cam says zero sugar and there’s a skinny person drinking it on the billboard?? Jeeesus
Sugar addiction is worse than smoking actually.
I used to drink alot of soda, especially zero sugar coke and always used the excuse that "At least I'm not smoking or drinking like most people so I'm still better off" to justify it.
I used to drink way too much regular soda (I never got into diet soda) and I think this was because it was framed as a rare treat when I was a kid. My parents normally didn't let me have it, but whenever we'd go to a restaurant or on special occasions, I could. Once I got my driver's license, I suddenly became in full control of dispensing this reward and could decide that just making it through a tough day was enough to earn it and this, of course, led to deciding that making it through a regular day was enough, then just making it to lunch.
I had the opposite experience. My parents never let us have it as kids and so I never developed a taste for it.
@@moonsigilGrowing up we never had soda in the house but I was allowed to drink it when we were out. However I never cared for it. I wonder what the best approach is for parents. My younger brothers were allowed to drink it first when we ate takeout and then on the weekends and now they drink a coke a day 😵💫 I suspect the reward (“this is special”) aspect plays a big role 🤔
In college I actually did a 2 part pilot study on mice on the effects of different sweeteners when dissolved in water. The first part analyzed their weight gain, the amount of food they ate and the amount they drank and the second part reintroduced a source if regular water to analyze if they had a preference. Finally at the end we compared their relative organ sizes mostly just because we had learned that technique that semester... But it was a very cool study and I'd kill to it on a much bigger scale. For our small groups of mice the groups with different artificial sweeteners drank less of the normal water when it was reintroduced than the group with regular sugar water... The study was by no means perfect but it strongly suggested that in mice the artificial sweeteners were more habit-forming than regular sugar. The mice with artificial sweeteners also ate more food and weighted more and the aspartame mice had a heavier relative weight to their hearts, enough to be statistically significant...
Wow, I wonder what the biochemistry of aspartame is that is can cause such profound changes. Did you happen to look at blood serum leptin and ghrelin levels? Obviously the artificial sweeteners were impacting hormone cycles. I prefer diet coke to other sodas but I do make a serious effort to limit myself. At the end of the day, I know aspartame is a Monsanto product and I'm not going to trust the company that produced DDT (Agent Orange) and popularized polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which have found their way into just about every water source on earth due to their complete lack of biodegradability. In pregnant women every microgram of PCBs per liter of blood serum decreased the odds of having a male child by 7%. Although PCBs are described as organic molecules they're artificial organic molecules which actually makes them more dangerous because they are bioactive.
The human diet is so fucked.
Kiana, unfortunately, I have a powerful addiction to diet soda because of the taste and free of worrying about calories.
It's like alcohol if it was legal to buy under 21 and doesn't harm you.
Thanks for favoring my comment, Kiana.
You are beautiful and have intriguing opinions on obesity & f@t-shaming.
Doesn't aspartame like eat holes in your brain pretty sure that's harmful😂
Worrying about calories isn't going to improve your health. What you're eating and drinking will. Stop eating processed garbage and you'll notice a difference
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271 Exactly. Plus, stay away from fast food and sweet snacks (aka eating like Nikocado Bozocado).
Sounds like it's less of an addiction, and more of you just absolutely love diet coke! 😉
Knowing how deliberate the marketing is just has me slamming the water down faster. I used to be addicted to the regular coke for many years. It's been 8 years since I regularly drank it. For a while it ended up being swapped in with other drinks, but between weight watching and hating the taste of artificial sweetner, the worst i do on the regular is kombucha :)
You tried that kinda new blue one? The GTs sacred life flavor.
I personally think Americans drink way too much fizzy drinks in general.
So I’m from the uk and I went on holiday with my family to Aruba, and most of the guests there were American rather than British. When we were there it was so easy to ask for a refill of a fizzy drink but when you asked for water or just normal fruit juice they usually didn’t have it and had to go look for it. And when I looked at the other guests and the rate of their drinking of fizzy drinks, it was too much for me, I would have probably gotten diabetes if it was me. Btw this was what I observed in the hotel so it was mostly Americans (yeah you could tell the Americans apart, and they were super loud too).
The reason for my “addiction” to diet soda is purely to do with my eating disorder. It’s a way to taste something/fill my stomach a bit without consuming calories. I definitely wouldn’t be so hooked it if I never had an eating disorder.
Nothing wrong with that since no negative health effects on humans have been found.
Diet coke makes me feel insatiably hungry and makes me want to binge eat.
@@Billybloop aspartame does that
@@skrillah6259 yes i seem to be sensitive to artificial sweeteners. I cant tolerate splenda, either. When i lived in the uk i remember when every soda suddenly had splenda in it, even the non diet ones. I enjoy an energy drink everyday and was pissed. That was that for me and i only drank coffee the remaining time i lived there.
@@Billybloop Had the opposite effect for me. It helped me stick to a 20-24 hour intermittent fasting to lose 80 pounds. Was crazy how easy it made sticking to a 1800-2000 calorie intake.
Reminds me so much of how the vaping epidemic started in high schools, in the same way you can justify a diet coke over a regular one because of the sugar content. People would constantly be talking about vaping “not being as bad” as smoking bc of the lack of carcinogenic material… you’re still addicted to nicotine either way.
You can buy vape juice that has 0% nicotine.
Nicotine in moderation is good for you
comparing apples to oranges
@@ericaking0224 But why would you ever do that? People don't smoke for the taste.
@@BeanpolrI do.
I just started cutting out Coke Zero/Diet Dr Pepper except on the weekends and I feel lot better now for doing it.
Turns out, if I want diet soda, that really just means I’m thirsty (drinking seltzer helps but plain water is also imperative for good health and hydration) and I’d also end up eating other sweets since my stomach wasn’t satisfied in getting diet soda when it was receiving signals saying “Food is coming!!”…when it wasn’t.
And, yeah, I also experienced the same withdrawal symptoms when I tried to quit diet soda cold turkey a few years ago.
It doesn’t help that Coca Cola is an absolutely abhorrent company that’s been known to kick people off of their land to seize water and hiring a militia in Colombia to advance their business in the region…
Water is so extremely key. Half my hunger was actually thirst. Which I had always heard. Turns out I just need even more than I thought. I drink a gallon and a half to 2 daily now.
Coca-Cola "Hiring militia in colombia" hahahahahaha stop the miss information hahah
I don't touch soda pop of any kind, it's all poison. When I was a kid, my grandma was addicted to diet Coke, and when she quit, her gums bled for weeks. She quit smoking and alcohol years before Diet Coke, and she said quitting Diet Coke was more physically and mentally harder than either of those. As an adult, I feel so bad for coworkers I see addicted to it, but people love their drugs...I mean soda pop.
I have chronic migraines and I've been trying to figure out what some of my triggers are. Turns out the near month long migraine I'd been having was because I'd have a diet coke in the morning before work because I didnt have time to make coffee. Cut that out (and some other things) and my migraines have gone down from daily to around just one per month or less. Its honestly incredible how much cutting out any artificial sugars and drinking more water helps.
omg i also have chronic migraines! i feel you on that. once i cut down on diet coke and other life style changes (reducing stress etc.) i went from a migraine every few days to once every few months to a year.
i hope you recover well and have a reduction in your migraines. take care!
Chronic migraines here. Changes in diet can make such a HUGE difference! I've never liked diet coke (imo it tastes nasty), but cutting back on artifical sweeteners seriously helped. I still get migraines, but I don't get them nearly as often as I used to. Exercise and working towards a minimal stress environment has also helped quite a bit.
On a side note, I did used to drink regular coke, eventually cut back on it, then cut it out without realizing it. Now I can't stand the taste of it!
@@jurassicjaws Lol Yanny or 로렐
I used to get ocular migraines and constant shortness of breath. Stopped drinking soda all the time and it seemed to go away completely around that time, hasn't been a problem since. I still drink a small amount occasionally with meals but nothing more. It was a terrifying experience, having my vision slowly fade away completely into blackness for a while, and my entire body would go numb as well. It would feel like I was in a sensory deprivation chamber. Then when all of that ceased my senses would come back and I'd have a pounding headache so bad that it felt like my head would explode. This only happened occasionally, but the shortness of breath was more or less all the time. I felt like I was suffocating but I wasn't. Hasn't bothered me since though. Side note, I saw multiple doctors who thoroughly studied me, who couldn't find anything wrong and recommended I go to the ER for a more detailed evaluation. I did, and after many tests they essentially asked me what I was doing there. I was, and still am, in perfect health. My dad is actually allergic to aspartame, so I kinda wonder if maybe that has something to do with it. But idk, this is all just my speculation, it does seem related.
it's always crazy to me the amount of people that think they don't have a caffeine addiction but are pounding like 4-5 plus sodas a day. lol bro you're out pacing me and my bad energy drink habit!
For me, it's definitely the aspartame and not the caffeine
I struggled with an ED for many years, and when I was at my lowest, I though diet coke was making me feel sick. It may have been psychosomatic or me being hyper aware of the ill effects of malnutrition on my body that I incorrectly attributed to diet coke, but I started feeling better when I stopped drinking it (though my other habits hadn't yet changed).
When I was a model in the early 2000s, a lot of the girls I worked with's daily "breakfast" would consist of a Diet Coke or black coffee with Splenda, a cigarette & maybe a celery stalk with some cottage cheese, for the less strict ones.
I will forever associate it with unhealthy habits for that reason, & I fear it would trigger a relapse into my _own_ ED I had in those days, just from the associated memories around it, so I don't touch it.
Erectile dysfunction that sucks
@Live'nLearned:1221 you think you're clever lmao :|
Seeing your first name got it to click that y'all are talking about eating disorders. I was wondering what Diet Coke had to with Erectile Disfunction, because I saw "ED" in several of the posts.
@@mysterylovescompany2657 I often just have coffee, but with a lot of sugar and some cream , many cigs for breakfast. I eat a lunch.
I have never seen my mom drink anything except for Diet Coke, to me it tastes like licking a rusty metal pole and never understood why people liked it. I appreciate the video very informative.
This is literally like a Christmas present! I binged all videos 2 weeks ago and I've been dying ever since. Lol.
😂😂💕
I also binged most all of Kiana's content recently. I've learned a ton and been taking notes. Love how authentic the videos comes off as. I feel like there is a lot grifty untrustworthy health gurus out there. Also doesn't help how much dry and boring health/fitness content out there that isn't very useful.
This was my father just a few years ago, he was drinking 3 or 4 diet cokes a day on average. The back seat of his car and just about every flat surface in his office had a layer empty cans or bottles. Finally he woke up one day and decided that feeling bloated all the time from so much carbonation wasn't worth it so he just up and quit. Even if there aren't any calories, consuming that much of anything will still make someone feel like crap.
I was drinking caffeine free Diet Coke for a long time and ended up in the ER with bad heart palpitations when I quit drinking it abruptly. On a positive note I lost 50 lbs pretty fast when I quit..my appetite reduced in half.
Did the diet coke make u hungry?
@@2cvlt740 yes..I notice a few days after quitting I eat a lot less. Just aspartame in general..like if I start drinking or eating anything with aspartame I start wanting food all the time even when I’m not hungry
For me as an European, its weird to even think to have one soda/day. Like man, you can have free tap water that doesn't contain much harmful chemicals as EU has strict laws (unlike USA). Also, any soda has to contain conservants (not always good for your body), food colour, even the artificial sweetner is sus. I don't know, better to not be addicted to anything (ofc sugar is in many stuff but regulating that helps too)
It all makes sense now. I’ve never been able to stop drinking Diet Coke, and it’s gotten to the point where I get anxious if I don’t have it in my fridge. But one thing I’ve noticed is that I cannot stand the taste of full sugar coke. I can taste all the sugar in it and it makes me ill.
I'm the same. I won't drink normal Coke when they serve it to me by mistake at the restaurant. But I can actually make a detour to find a shop and buy diet Coke.
yeah normal coke makes my mouth feel sticky
I was the same way when I used to drink sugar-free redbull all the time. The normal ones would taste unbearably sweet, even though compared to most drinks its still fairly bitter.
yes! same thing here, i think it has to do with the mouth feel. with real sugar you can feel the heavy syrupy grossness, but diet coke is much closer to water and it doesn't have the same cloying or sticky feeling.
Yeah I feel like this was missing from the video. Before I started drinking diet Sodas I remember how if I drank too much of the sugar filled ones then I would feel sick. Now tasting regular coke and other sodas their sweetness is cloying.
I used to be heavilty addicted to Diet coke and other diet pops. I got a Soda Stream which has helped. I realized I love the carbonation because it made it feel like it bubbled away the food in my mouth (lol sorry). If you are struggling with Diet Coke addiction, I suggest club soda. It's an adjustment but it's fun to add different fruits, or herbs like mint to make it taste good.
If you're near a trader Joe's, they have the best flavored, carbonated waters.
its not the bubbles, the carbon dioxide adds a strong bitterness that mixes well with the flavor and sweetener
I've worked in the restaurant industry for almost 20 years. It is a well known fact from servers, that a single person will almost, 90% of the time, drink 2 to four diet cokes in one sitting. I always had a pitcher of diet coke prepped, because it was so common to refill. I've also noticed this with Dr. Pepper drinkers, as well as Mountain Dew drinkers.
They "prefer" Pepper or Dew. Pick your poison, right? Mine was Diet Coke, like most folks on this thread.
@@pebblebrookbooks4852 I actually like both and have no preference between the two brands (with Dr. Pepper itself though I prefer regular over diet, since diet is starting to taste like soda going flat, in the same vein as Diet Coke).
How is this even possible?? I can’t even finish one drink the entire time.
How is this even possible?? I can’t even finish one drink the entire time.
@@Fuzzysea693 same
Coffee > any caffeinated soft drinks
I tried to quit so many times, and I knew I had to because I had a lot of chronic pain and autoimmune issues that the diet coke could not have been good for. But every time I tried to stop, I'd feel so cruddy. Then, finally, when I'd decided that I was going to give up diet coke for the new year, I got sick around Christmas. My throat hurt so much I couldn't drink diet coke. I was sick for a week, and when my throat started to feel better, I realized, wait! This could be my chance. I already felt so awful for being sick. Don't drink it. And it's been four or five years now.
I was sad for the first TWO YEARS. Every time I wanted to go somewhere that used to make me happy (because of free soda refills), or I wanted to celebrate something, I wanted a diet coke. Or when I sad, I'd think, let me get a diet coke to feel better. It was so hard.
But I didn't go back to drinking it, because I knew I'd just go right back up to drink two liters or more a day.
Congratulations! Good for you for pulling through and refusing to let something like that control you. Keep it up!
It was easier for me to get off it by switching to carbonated water. I found the sensation and burn of bubbly liquid the most stimulating.
You did amazingly! I hope it helped your chronic illness(es) ❤❤❤
I chuckled at the idea of a diet coke addiction, until I realized that I'm drinking my fourth mug of coffee today.
As a type 1 diabetic, this was my go to for years, up until the start of last year. After not having it for months, I had some diet coke on my birthday, and the day after ended up on the toilet for a couple hours. My body genuinely cannot deal with the artificial sweeteners in this stuff anymore.
7:29 those are caffeine withdrawal symptoms, I was drinking 3 cups of death wish (about 22 cups of coffee[2.2g of caffeine]) for like 3 months straight every day, and yea, bad headaches, nausea, anger etc.
Im not addicted to any sodas, but I am however addicted to coffee. I came across this video at 2am, because I am up having acid reflux problems. The same night I decided I at the very least need to cut down on coffee. Thanks for this educational video on habits and addiction!
How's it going?
Not sure how OP did cutting back on coffee, but anyone with acid reflux should eliminate caffeine completely. Go decaff if necessary.
It's one reason why I don't drink diet coke (the other being that it tastes terrible, diet ginger ale is my preference).
I used to be insanely addicted to diet coke. The first thing I would do when I got up in the morning was drink a diet coke. And I would drink several more throughout the day or I would end up with a stabbing headache. After years of this, I finally got over my addiction and I haven't had a drop of pop in over 2 years. Life is so much better now.
that's my current situation with coffee. I traveled to Europe one summer and the first morning there I was about to have a panic attack because I was having a hard time finding a cup. Now I travel with caffeine pills just in case. Yes, I am aware this is a problem.
I would like to add something that my endocrinology professor has been pointing out in our classes about artificial sweetners is that they signal the release of insulin for their sweet taste but since there is no glucose for the insulin to bind it just stays there, that could lead to various bad things including insulin-resistance AKA diabetes, which also could explain the high number of cases of this disease we have seen in the last 2-3 decades
Correct.
That's been debunked in human studies for sucralose and aspartame. You can Google it.
@@rbrtwhill Alot of money of the zero sugar industries goes into it *wink wink. Also it's still on research -> evidence level and even specialists disagree with each other but there is always the anonymous guy behind a screen with the uncontestable google source to be absolutelly sure and contradict everyone.
@@henriquetomio If you actually look into it, all of the anti-aspartame research has been published by one group and despite many attempts never been reproduced. It is in fact the sugar industry who is funding falsified research, not the other way around.
Artificial sweeteners obviously do not trigger insulin release because if they did, diet soda would trigger hypoglycemic episodes, which has never been reported.
Diet coke in can only is most refreshing drink ever Even though in last 40/yrs I drank over 56'000 cans I still drink about six cans per day love it not hurting health feel fine at 70
There was a time when I used to drink diet coke, I stopped now and have cut soda entirely from my diet. In hindsight, while I've never really considered it during the time when I drank diet coke, I can remember a constant yearning for it. I wouldn't go so far as to call it an addiction, though maybe because I don't really have an addictive personality and I've never done any addictive substance, but I'd always have this unique taste of diet coke in my mouth that I would always want to satiate. Very strange... thanks for the video!
I'd call that an addiction
Watching this leaves me in a state of wow. I always hated the taste of diet soda and could never understand why people drank it to begin with. Now I know!
Me too, I don't think I've ever drank a can of that stuff, the metallic can alone looks like a battery, so unappealing.
-bottled water-
I drink one when going to work for lunch for convenience and occasionally at night. I am an addictive personality, but never formed one for this soda. So take it all with a grain of salt. Drink water because it’s pretty good (most of the time) for you, but enjoy a pop once in a while without fear. People get way too worked up about pretty much anything these days.
Then again, I drink caffeine-free Diet Coke when I drink soda. It tastes better than Diet Coke and and actually hydrates you.
@@billd9667youre addicted and in denial. Try to stop lol
@@Unkn0wn1133 What for? I don’t consider a diet soda once a weekday to be a problem in any way. The coffee? That’s another thing all together, but related.
Curb your wokeness! 😇
Honestly i love diet coke, it helped me drop sugary beverages in general, and eventually my sugar cravings were pretty much gone. i almost never eat sweets any more and i barely even drink diet sodas because i lost my deoendency on the craving for soda by using diet sodas to help with the transition. i used to go through half a 12 pack every day of coke before switching to zero/diet. now i mostly drink water out of my growler and occasionally have a diet soda with food if i go out somewhere.
me personally ive bever been healthy, i am and have been overweight my whole life. diet soda helped me take control of my life and lose the first 20 pounds (going to the gym helped even more). i was drinking almost 1000 calories a day of just SODA. diet coke changed that and i started seeing the results. seeing the results helped me realize I choose what i put in my body. and since then ive made healthier and healthier choices for myself. the transition has been gradual but now i go to the gym 3x a week and drink water 90% of the time
before making that change i really didnt think anything i did would make a difference but switching to diet soda really helped ingrain to me that i am in control. it really started because i refused to drink soda with sugar in it. so when there wasnt diet soda available i just drank water. eventually, this led to me just just drinking more water and slowly weaning off diet soda. i have maybe, 2 every couple weeks at most? I dont even really drink sugary juices anymore either. im pretty much just on water now. Water is definitely king, but dont hate people on diet sodas. and if youre on diet sodas, dont stop there! you can change so much more about your diet (combined with an hour of activity a day) and see great results! (not advocating for keto) but keto bread thats like 40 calories has been a small cut to my intake that has been helping plenty. i eat plant based hotdogs now (60 calories as opposed to 130 calorie ones i ate before) and these little changes have been great because i eat til im full but i dont feel guilty
one more thing! in the middle of this transition i switched from just diet coke to diet coke + caffeine free!
I had to Google other definitions for "growler" because in British slang that sentence is WILD
@@slicehorgan its a water bottle. 🦅
I admitted years ago that I'm addicted to diet coke. I managed to quit for a few months but went right back to drinking only diet coke. The only way my addiction manifests itself is that when I stop, I will get a horrible headache on the third day after quitting, which can not be remedied by any painkillers in any amount. Also, regular water now just makes my stomach turn.
For some reason, I've never really gotten into Diet Coke (or even just diet sodas in general). The main reason is I always found the taste of diet sodas really gross (and it turns out I'm not the only one who found that taste gross). As I got older, I've even slowly grown to dislike a majority of sugary drinks like sodas and nowadays, I prefer having water and (unsweetened) tea as my go-to-beverage. I do like a boba drink and some regular soda/sugary drinks sometimes though, but I can't imagine consuming more than the equivalent of one can of soda, let alone a liter, a day.
Bobas are my weakness
I also think Diet Coke is disgusting. At first it tastes the same, but as soon as you swallow it, it leaves this awful flavor in your mouth that you just cant take another sip
Unsweetened tea is my fav for restaurants fr
Thank you Kiana! I was actually avoiding watching this video because I didn't want anything to come between me and my precious Diet Coke. But now I'm going to take the time to reevaluate my zero-calorie soda consumption going forward. Please continue to post great content!
I'm currently crying because I'm out of diet coke, trying to convince myself that I don't need it but I'm close to tear my flesh apart from desperation.
My mom was ADDICTED to Diet Coke. It went from a joke to making the family angry when she’d sneak her third big gulp of the day. Even when I researched aspartame and relayed the info, it wasn’t enough. While we can’t specifically correlate, she did get breast cancer (she’s fine now) and I still stand by her Diet Coke addiction being a factor.
That's a reach. 1/3 of people get cancer
Not everything is cancerous and not everything needs to be cancerous to be bad
Correlation doesn’t equal causation
aspartame is harmless it’s the caffeine that’s the issue. but either way diet soda doesnt cause cancer...
Omg please do a video with the bits you cut out!! I wanna know all of it and your research is always impeccable!
Also it makes me laugh how many fat activists think they’re anti capitalist but don’t acknowledge how food corporations have engineered food to be addictive and cheap with high energy and low nutrient density. This is a perfect example of it 🙃
I was getting brain fog, back acne and digestive issues since I started drinking diet sodas, it was aspartame. I don't have issues with other artificial sweeteners, if you're having these problems try taking a break for a week or two and see if you get better.
Aspartame is literally poison. It can turn into formaldehyde. My uncle just passed away from stomach cancer. He drank diet coke every day for years. Aspartame puts the DIE in diet.
I never quite understand why im so addicted to diet coke. I like regular coke, but since sugar tax its very expensive. I have no idea why im addicted it doesnt really taste of anything!!
Video went over it pretty well. Caffeine and artificial sweeteners triggers your brain to want it. If its not breaking your bank I wouldnt worry about it. If you feel like its wasting too much of your income, you just need to swap to water, especially since you dont even really like the flavor. Maybe start drinking coffee if you haven't to replace the caffeine you're addicted to.
As a moron who decided to taste something I had personally chemically isolated (seriously bad idea), caffeine is pretty terrible flavour-wise.
It's a step down from the taste of bittrex (I don't know why I do this to myself), if not as strong, but its in the same general ballpark.
For anyone who doesn't have access to either caffeine pills or lab grade equipment and stupidity, the closest comparison would be to lick a Nintendo switch cartridge.
DS cartridge would work too. Don't ask me how I know...
my lab has pure chemical-store-bought caffeine and now I want to give it a try xD
Actually, I hate the taste of coffee, cola, energy drinks, etc, but when I tried a caffeine water (only water with a bit of caffeine, nothing else in ingredients) I fell in love with it. The little bitterness of the water was doing it for me. Sadly I cannot find it anywhere anymore.
found NileRed’s burner account
I really loved reading this comment because it meant that at one point not only did you try caffeine, and Brittex, but also had to lick a Nintendo cartridge in order to make this simple example. Right on brother!
Great research you’ve put into this video, appreciate that you didn’t overplay health risks of drinking it without evidence and you just talked about it’s addictive properties, keep up the good work 🥰
I tried my first diet coke a few months ago because I went on a significant diet and I've been hooked since. I went from almost exclusively drinking water to having 1 or 2 diet sodas a day. I actually don't like the taste of aspartame, it's really the fact that it's 0 calories that keeps me drinking it.
All the comments:
"I don't know how people enjoy ."
"My quit and they almost died! No clue why tho."
It’s Pepsi Max for me. Been obsessed with it for years and if I have to go a day without drinking it I feel pretty physically terrible. I’d never really thought about it, but then I read about how people with unmedicated ADHD often self-medicate in other ways, and had a huge lightbulb moment. I’d always had negative reactions to the stimulant medications, but the caffeine in one can of Pepsi is decidedly less, and you can sip it slowly throughout the day. It’s the only thing that helps me concentrate. So yeah, not saying that’s a factor for everyone, obviously, but it might play a part.
You can also sip green tea! It's caffeine is around coke levels.
Yeah that’s probably a factor but ADHD also generally makes people much more prone to addiction in general. Tho I know of lots of people who don’t take ADHD meds who self medicate with caffeine or nicotine I think that’s very common
Edit: trying to self medicate for ADHD with nicotine doesn’t work out super well for most people cause needing to smoke constantly and having withdrawals all the time is pretty distracting
Pepsi max is awesome. It’s got the most caffeine too. Lol
I am one of those people with an addiction to Diet Coke and I hate it. I know why I shouldn’t drink it, but it’s an urge for me, so difficult to cut off.
So pleased to see a Kiana upload! When I was working for a newspaper and working long hours, I developed a Diet Coke habit. Fascinated to see your take on this.
I am heavily addicted to them...i drink prolly 6 or more cans a day...started drinking them after i quit alcoholism and smokeless tobacco...now my diet coke addiction is worse than i ever remember those being...i cant not have it
This is really interesting. I work at McDonalds and we have two regulars every day that come in just to order a large diet coke.. I thought it was kind of strange there is not one but they are the only two who come just to buy fountain drinks and specifically diet coke. Just thought I'd share
Probably because it's $1 for a large cup. It's pretty convenient if you're too lazy to go to the grocery store to constantly buy soda. I'd never go to McD if they had the standard $3 pricing
This was my experience as a fast food worker as well
@@allanw and the fountain sodas tastes different than the canned or bottled kind. i don’t know exactly why but i notice it with sprite
One may be my ex… he no shite drink a 2 liter of diet coke every day. It was disgusting. He used to harass me about having a cup of coffee in the morning and being “addicted” to it, as if he wasn’t drinking caffeine all day long 😂
Here in England, the drinks companies even put the Diet Coke ingredients in BEER! I’ve been addicted for years ….
I absolutely love diet coke. It's a new addiction (maybe like one a day) where I used to tell everyone I hated the taste of cola, never drank soda. But I think maybe like 6 months ago I got some with a maccys and really liked it. Gradually started drinking it more and more. And now I have it almost every day. Really interested to see this video as I agree, I think it must me highly addictive cause I honestly don't know why I like it so much. I'm not into soda at all personally, except sugar free energy drinks (I guess that counts technically).
As someone who struggles with addiction I feel like i've learned some valuable things in this video.
just wanted to say thanks :)
It's got caffeine. Same reason the British are addicted to tea (roughly equivalent concentration vs diet coke), and same reason America is addicted to coffee. It's not a mystery, it's a drug.