I’m not a pothead, a drunk, or even a chain smoker.  I’m not a gambler, crack fiend, or methhead.  I don’t buy too much shit I don’t need; I don’t drink coffee to keep me going, and I don’t sniff glue for fun.

I AM without a doubt a carbonated soda monkey.  That powerful burst of bubbles when you first open a can of Fresca is like sniffing the morning dew in spring.  It’s the salty ocean air, and the cool mountain breeze.  It’s the moonlight reflecting on a lake, and the white moments of serenity after a snowfall. 

Yes, my name is Carbonated Soda Monkey Whore, and I love every minute of it.

On average I can go through 3-4 12 packs of diet soda a month.  That’s an average of 2 a day just at home, that doesn’t count all the Diet Cokes or Diet Pepsi’s I would have while eating out.  I was probably averaging at least 4 diet carbonated soft drinks a day.

My top 5 Carbonated Soda Masters:

5 – Diet Pepsi  

4 – Diet Sprite

3 – Diet Sunkist 

2- Coke Zero 

1- Fresca

They are my masters no more, I’m sad to say it’s been 3 weeks since I have had a single drop of carbonated diet beverage touch my lips, no I haven’t replaced them with regular sodas. 

I went cold turkey. 

The first week I was like a heroin addict trying to get clean, I’m pretty sure I saw a baby crawling towards me on the ceiling, and a bunch of people with British accents sat by my bed talking all kinds of crazy.

What is the cause of this great turnaround?  An article in the LA Times which announced that the consumption of diet soda can lead to a greater risk of stroke caused me to take a step back.  The American Stroke Association at their International Stroke Conference released the study which was conducted by the association lead by Dr. Hannah Gardener (University of Miami, FL). 

The ASA studied 2500 people and found that drinking 1 soda a day increased your risk of “cardiovascular events” by 61%.    The study has been criticized for being incomplete, moreover critics assert that the data strictly shows an association, and doesn’t create a direct link.

The study got me looking further into what I was consuming more frequently than water. After more research online I found that there several studies which link diet sodas and greater health risks. 

A Purdue study conducted on two groups of rats, one being fed yogurt which was sweetened by saccharin, and the other group fed yogurt sweetened by glucose, found that the rats being fed the artificial sweeteners put on more body fat, added more weight, and didn’t make up for it by cutting back on overall caloric intake.  Authors Susan Swithers, PhD, and Terry Davidson, PhD surmised that the artificial sweetener creates a disconnect in your body between the sweet sensation and high calorie food.  Essentially the use of saccharin “…changes the body’s ability to regulate intake”. 

The reasons behind the body’s change when consuming artificial sweeteners:

“…sweet foods provide a "salient orosensory stimulus" that strongly predicts someone is about to take in a lot of calories. Ingestive and digestive reflexes gear up for that intake but when false sweetness isn't followed by lots of calories, the system gets confused. Thus, people may eat more or expend less energy than they otherwise would.”.

Another study which has created controversy over diet sodas and weigh gain was conducted at the University of Texas.  Sharon P. Fowler, MPH found “There was a 41 percent increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day.” 

Additional data from Fowlers study:

“For regular soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

26 percent for up to 1/2 can each day

30.4 percent for 1/2 to one can each day

32.8 percent for 1 to 2 cans each day

47.2 percent for more than 2 cans each day.

For diet soft-drink drinkers, the risk of becoming overweight or obese was:

     36.5 percent for up to 1/2 can each day

     37.5 percent for 1/2 to one can each day

     54.5 percent for 1 to 2 cans each day

     57.1 percent for more than 2 cans each day.”

None of these studies provides a “smoking gun” between diet soda and health risks, but they do provide a great deal of associative evidence.  The data is significant enough that it gives me pause, and a willingness to terminate the consumption of diet soda for the next 6 – 8 months to see how it affects my weight loss or weight gain.  During my best stretches of working out and eating better, I did continue to consume diet soda.  It’s one more thing I’m cutting out to try and eliminate this big fat gut.