I get this question frequently. Many people see that on the HCG diet you are on a low calorie diet, and since diet soda has no calories, it should be fair game. Sounds logical, but no, you can’t drink diet soda on the HCG diet. In fact if you never drank it again in your whole life you would be MUCH better off. Here’s why.
Just because something doesn’t have calories doesn’t mean it’s fair game. Counting calories is an extremely flawed way of looking at the quality of food. It’s a complicated issue so I’ll save it for another post, but basically calories mean almost nothing.
The artificial sweeteners in the diet soda are what’s going to get you. In fact diet soda’s have been linked to cancer, weight GAIN (ironic eh?) diabetes, heart conditions and metabolic syndromes.
In fact in recent studies they compared those who drank 1 diet soda a day and compared them with people who didn’t have any. They found that those who had a diet soda a day had a 70 percent larger waist size. And when people had 2 or more diet drinks a day that number shot up to 500% larger waist size. So yes, diet drinks make you fat.
Not only do they make you fat but the other ill effects from the sweeteners are killing you. In fact the aspartame in diet sodas are actually linked to diabetes. So diet drinks make you fat, ruin your health, AND can cause diabetes. Hmm, the term “diet” on the can doesn’t exactly seem fair does it?
You’d think by now one of the government agencies would have brought up something and taken some action on such a blatant lie in advertising. At least put a warning label or something. But these big corporations seem to run the show in Washington so don’t expect anything to happen anytime soon.
For now, avoid diet drinks and sodas in general. Sure, have one on a special occasion, but as a rule of thumb just don’t drink them. It’s not worth it. Everyone I talk to thinks it will be the hardest thing to quit. They even compare it to smoking cigarettes! But once they are off it for 2-3 days they report feeling so much better, not missing it at all, and they also tell me that food tastes better. And when they do eventually try one again they say it just “doesn’t taste right” anymore. So don’t worry, it’s easier than you think and the benefits of getting off the diet soda, or just soda in general will far outweigh any discomfort for a day or two.
This is your health, don’t let a silly drink ruin it. I find that is you have a hard time you can get “soda water”, it’s just carbonated water and has that “fizz” that most of us are looking for. You can even add healthy flavored stevia and make your own “soda” out of it. It tastes great and will easily help you quit the bad stuff.
So avoid diet soda on the HCG diet and you will thank yourself later.
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My company specializes in preparing and delivering HCG diet food to our clients on HCG programs. The request often flood into my email box regarding distributing soda’s with our meal plans. We currently provide 2 liters of water and have found that the clients that stick with this plan and don’t sneak in soda often do much better and avoid stalls. Our understanding is the aspartame and citric acid found in many sodas has several adverse health effects. There are soda alternatives and we are in the process of trying and recommending a few of these to our clients. For now H2O seems to work best for me and our clients.
Thanks. Very helpful advice. Thought I was doing OK with drinking diet colas on the HCG plan. Guess not.
Well glad you caught it early. Just change now and you’ll do much better.
Without your bias towards whether diet cola should ever be consumed, can you honestly answer whether or not it is okay to drink it once done with the drops, on the three weeks of maitenence. I’m not asking if you think I should drink it at all, but whether it truthfully hinders the biologic process of the diet. I would really appreciate your honestly. I didn’t drink any during the drops, but would like to enjoy a drink of diet soda every once in a while…
Yes, it will effect your diet negatively. You can do what you want, I’m just giving you tips for success. And yes, it will make you gain weight after the diet, but if you want to drink it that’s up to you. And no, you should not drink it on maintenance. No aspartame should be consumed while on maintenance.
If you take the HCG drops and fail on your diet, will you gain weight?
Depends on what you mean by fail. If you aren’t planning on giving it your best shot don’t start in the first place. Wait until you are ready. You can make a mistake here or there, you don’t have to be 100% the whole time, but that doesn’t give you license to cheat.