Does Diet Drinks Make You Bloated
A lot of people have heard that old anecdote that diet soda makes your tummy bloated, but is this true or an urban legend?
In this article we will explore the answer to the question in a little more detail with some reference articles for the science behind it.
A lot of people prefer diet sodas over regular sodas because they are trying to lose weight, but the bloating effect may seem to counteract that visually and bloating feels uncomfortable, which is why you should know whether or not diet soda does in fact contribute to making you feel bloated.
So
Does Diet Soda Make You Bloated?
Yes it does increase bloating. If you are looking to lose weight, you may be shocked to find out that diet soda not only makes your stomach bloat and but be a main factor in you gaining belly fat, weight.
You may want to avoid diet sodas for a variety of health reasons as well.
Studies have shown that when people give up diet soda they actually lose weight around their stomachs.
Other studies show that drinking diet soda can increase your risk of heart attack and diabetes.
If you want to learn more about how diet soda can make you bloated and how you can quit drinking diet soda, this article can help.
We give a detailed overview of the reasons why drinking soda causes you to gain weight in your belly and some tips on how to drink less diet soda.
Diet Soda Causes Bloating and Belly Weight Gain
It may seem ironic, but many people have found that after giving up diet soda their bellies actually seemed to be less bloated.
Diet sodas are marketed as a calorie-free soda alternative, and while it may be true that these drinks do not contain calories, they do contain chemicals and additives that can cause you to bloat and gain water weight in your belly.
The reason why diet sodas are so bad for your digestive tract is because they contain additives to replicate the sweet flavor of sugar.
Natural cane sugar is far more healthy for you than drinking diet soda or processed corn syrup that is found in many non-diet sodas.
Sucralose, aspartame, and cyclamate are all examples of artificial sweeteners that are found in diet sodas that have been linked to digestive problems including stomach pains, bloating, and water weight gain.
They can even be found to increase appetite, which is the opposite of what you would want if you were trying to lose weight fast.
The GI tract has a hard time breaking down artificial flavors, colors, and additives such as the artificial sweeteners that are found in diet soda, and drinking these regularly can wreck your digestive system, making you feel and look worse.
Why Do Artificial Sweeteners Cause You To Gain Weight?
Artificial sweeteners are perhaps useless for losing weight when you consider the fact that most people find that drinking diet sodas or other products containing artificial sweeteners actually make them gain weight.
Why do artificial sweeteners make you gain weight though?
It is because these artificial sweeteners can trigger your body to intake more sugar from your food, which makes you more hungry and causes you to gain more weight.
If you have formed a dependency on diet sodas, you could try transitioning to an all-natural soda instead as an alternative.
Your Body Cannot Break Down Artificial Sweeteners
Unfortunately the human body is not made to process man-made artificial ingredients that are found in many of our foods which causes a lot of health problems and unnecessary weight gain.
The body is not good at breaking down the sweeteners that are found in diet sodas and it can cause your stomach to bloat as the intestines struggle to handle the artificial ingredients.
Diet sodas are actually not very effective for helping you lose weight, so if this is why you drink them, you are better off switching to an herbal tea such as green tea that is made out of all-natural ingredients that the body can handle instead of diet soda which has been found time and time again to make people more hungry and bloated when they drink it.
Want to Quit Diet Sodas?
If you want to quit drinking diet soda after finding out that it can cause your stomach to bloat, you may want to check out these tips for quitting diet soda.
We know that quitting cold turkey can be rough, but if you are serious about losing weight and improving your health, drinking less diet sodas can help.
Diet soda can cause heart problems, increased risk of diabetes, and make you gain weight around your stomach.
In addition to looking heavier due to stomach bloating, it can be uncomfortable and painful to experience regular bloating. If your stomach is often bloated one of the reasons why may be because you are drinking too much diet soda.
Drinking less diet soda can help you be healthier.
Taper Off How Much You Drink
If you drink diet soda every day it may be more difficult for you to quit cold turkey.
One thing that can help you is if you begin to start to slowly drink less and less each day. You can keep a log or keep track in your phone of how many cans of diet soda you are drinking each day, and try to reduce it by at least can each day until you are not drinking any at all.
The best way to taper off how much you drink may be to replace the habit with something else.
Replace it With Something Else
One way to break a habit is to get to the root of why you are doing that habit in the first place.
- Do you drink diet soda because you like the bubbles?
- Do you like the sugary flavor?
- Do you need a caffeinated pick me up throughout the day?
If the answer to those questions is yes, you should replace the sodas with something else that has the same or similar effect.
You can enjoy a sparkling water if you want the carbonation and there are natural flavors that you can add to help enhance the flavor without artificial sweeteners.
There are even sugar-free zero-calorie sweeteners that can be used instead of artificial sweeteners so there is no excuse to keep drinking bloat-causing diet sodas.
Drinking Diet Soda Can Affect Your Mood and Hunger
A good reason to drink less diet soda is because it can even affect your mood in addition to your hunger.
Artificial sweeteners have been found to make people more hungry as it messes with the hunger hormones in your body.
Drinking zero calorie soda doesn't do much good if you make up for it in eating extra food, because it will trigger your body to crave more sugar.
It for some reason makes you want sugar and you end up eating more junk food, which is why you shouldn't drink diet soda if you are trying to lose weight.
The Serious Health Effects
Some of the health effects of drinking too much diet soda can be serious.
Studies have found that people who drink diet soda are more likely to suffer from a heart attack than people who do not drink diet soda.
It can also make you gain weight, which may be one reason why diet soda can cause heart problems, as being overweight is perhaps the most common cause of heart issues.
If you crave a drink with carbonation, there are all natural sodas, fizzy waters, and other alternatives to diet soda that will NOT leave you bloated, overweight, and at a higher risk of death from a heart attack.
Drinking diet soda can also increase your chances of having diabetes.
Diet Sodas Health Effects May Include
- Bloating
- Heart problems
- Increased risk of heart attack
- Stomach problems
- Diabetes
- Weakened bones
Conclusion
Although diet sodas are marketed as the solution to your weight loss problems, they actually usually cause more harm than good.
- Diet soda is not good for your health and if you are looking to lose weight it can actually have a worse effect.
- It will cause you to bloat because your body may struggle to process the artificial sweeteners.
- Another reason why it causes you to gain weight is because those with artificial sweeteners trigger your body to crave more sugar
- You actually end up eating more food.
If you drink diet soda and you are looking to lose belly fat, you should give up the diet soda – at least for a while and you can assess your well-being and attest to the impact yourself.
Many have found that after eliminating diet soda from their diet that they lost belly fat faster – so just think that through.
Diet soda is NOT a weight loss solution by any means and if you want a diet soda experience you should instead try flavored water.
You can taper off your use of diet soda instead of quitting cold turkey, or simply drink a little bit less soda if you are trying to lose belly fat.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do.
Does Diet Drinks Make You Bloated
Source: https://sodapopcraft.com/does-diet-soda-make-you-bloated/