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Ditch the Diet Soda

I've found over the years that people put a lot of pride, or value on their diet soda choices.  While a step away from full sugar soda is commendable, don't make the mistake of stopping there. In fact, drinking diet soda is strongly correlated with overweight and obesity.   

Diet soda has 5 calories or fewer per serving, of course, but emerging research seems to suggest that drinking sugary-tasting beverages, even artificially sweetened ones, appears to develop a preference in the human body for a whole range of other sweet things. And when we consume sweeter cereals, snacks, breads and desserts, we tend to consume more calories, and eventually put on pounds.
A 2005 study, by Sharon P. Fowler and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, showed that people who drink diet soda gain weight - lots of it. In fact, the research 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."

Nutrition expert Leslie Bonci says, "Diet drinks aren't diets, a lot of people say, 'I am drinking a diet soft drink because that is better for me.' But you can't go into a fast-food restaurant and eat a high-calorie, fatty meal and say, 'Oh, it's OK, because I had diet soda.' If you don't do anything else but switch to a diet soft drink, you are not going to lose weight." Also, drinking multiple cans of diet soda every day squeezes out from our diets the healthful beverages - juices, water and teas - that can best benefit our bodies.