In a competitive world where the idea of professional success being the driving force of life rules, the idea of a perfect meal often goes for a toss.
Yet, in the effort to keep fit, people tend to substitute their junk food with the so-called healthier options and end up cramming more junk in their systems. The much hyped Diet Coke is not out of this loop either.
How Does It Work?
A typical lunch for a health-conscious executive easily consists of a bowl of salad eased into the system by a can of diet coke. The idea behind this is to enjoy the same refreshing punch of cola without the additional calories. But does it really work? Studies have shown that even though people believe in reduced sugar content, they are not fooling their systems to think the same. Studies conducted by the scientists at the Texas Health Science Center have shown that people consuming the diet varieties of these beverages have gained 70% more weight than the people consuming the normal ones.
The Brain Game
How is this possible? Since our taste buds are not equipped enough to tell fake and real sugar apart, our brains have to make the extra effort of ascertaining it. Aspartame, one of the major ingredients behind ‘diet’ foods, generates a higher response to the sugar tracer mechanism in the brain. This component triggers pangs of hunger without doing anything to alleviate it. Thus, at the end of the day, you are only ingesting cans of supposedly sugarless liquids, that lead you to consume more, even when you feel full. This results in rampant weight gain.
Crave For More
Our body experiences food cravings on a regular basis. The moment we taste something, the neural transmitters on our taste buds let the brain know that our cravings have been satisfied. Since diet colas have markedly less sugar, the unsatisfied sweet craving is directed to ingesting other satisfying foodstuff. This allows in a lot of unwanted calories that end up increasing our waistline, giving way to a host of ailments in the future.
Conclusion
But a widening waistline is not the only problem. The fact remains that people who have been regularly drinking diet cokes have had 61% higher chances of cardiac arrests in comparison to those who do not consume this drink. Drinking a can or two in a week is potentially harmless, mostly because the body tends to burn the empty calories with physical activity. Yet, an increase intake might become an eventual problem.
So you are requested to think twice before reaching for a can of diet coke. Although you might be dazzled by its sugar content, at the end of the day, you would have only consumed a large quantity of nothing but empty calories.
