Diet Soda

 
In college I was made aware of a study that had one group drink regular soda for a certain amount of time and another group drink diet soda. At the end of the study they had found that the people drinking the regular soda had lost more weight (or gained less weight, I don't remember) than the people drinking diet soda. I remember thinking it was an interesting example of experiment proving counter-intuitive results.

One of the ways the apparent paradox could be explained is psychologically - yes, the diet soda is technically better but people are prone to thinking "I'm drinking the diet soda so I might as well have two slices of pizza" etc. and in the end they ruin the gainz.

Aside from thinking it was a fascinating experiment, it never had much effect on my life because I just don't see the point in drinking diet soda. 

Fast forward to today.

Recently I ordered caffeine-free coke and what actually got delivered was caffeine-free diet coke. As someone who drinks caffeine-free coke this is an annoyingly common occurrence. I don't know what it is but for some reason people confuse the two with reckless abandon. To me, diet coke is cheap swill but I didn't want to be wasteful and also figured I'd re-check my assumptions.

To my surprise, I've found it to be a tastier beverage than I had anticipated but here's the thing... Switching to diet soda and keeping everything else constant, I've found that I'm eating more and the reason I'm eating more is not because I'm lying to myself. I don't count calories and I don't make bargains about what I can eat and what I can't. No, I'm eating because I'm insanely hungry almost all the time now and it's a pretty clear direct relationship to the soda itself.

So, I don't have a scale and haven't measured my weight and so maybe I'm hungrier and eating more but have some how lost more weight than I would have otherwise. I'm not suggesting anything about this experience is purely scientific and, in case you're wondering, some studies have shown diet soda increases appetite though there are conflicting studies. Still, the contrast has been so stark and so surprising, at least in terms of subjective experience, that the conclusion is clear - sugar tastes better than artificial sweetener and I don't enjoy being hungry so it's regular soda or water and that's it.