You get that, when an issue is something like "impact on behavior" and you eliminate any possible impact on behavior, you've rigged the question, right?

In other words, deliberately limiting the caloric intake when increased caloric consumption is a potential effect makes the study useless. It's not a control at that point. It's an artificial brake on the study.

Diet soda/energy drinks are amazing.

Just because it's more than the soda's weight doesn't mean anything. It is causing you to retain water from other things you ingest.

I'd rather drink a lot of diet soda than a lot of milk. That shit will make you plump up fast.

Of course it is.

The issue is not the BEHAVIOR. The issue is the physiological response to the artificial sweetener.

Behavior is not simply governed by every single impulse our body gives us. Just because I'm horny doesn't mean I'm going to try to **** anyone I see. Similarly, just because I'm hungry, I'm not going to just eat everything I see. Both are signals I get from my body, but the outcome is based upon choices I make.

Brilliant insight, professor.

Boom. I make food choices all the time that I don't want to. What is causing me to crave pizza for dinner, I have no ****ing clue, but I am opting for the chicken breast with veggies tonight. Me craving pizza is there whether I have a diet soda or not.

It was certainly more enlightening than the post it was responding to.

No, the issue is whether or not the use of artificial sweeteners can have a direct, or indirect, effect of causing weight gain.

**** it. I was good all week, so I'm having the pizza LMAO Nice being able to splurge now and still being trim.

Honestly I eat like shit...fasting FTW. :LOL:

(although I stay away from fast food and beer/alcohol so that helps)

Oh believe me, I ate dirty Chinese food last night. I usually try to do cheat meals Friday because my squat day is Sunday and if I eat dirty the night before I.....well you get the point. :D

We're having a fairly reasonable discussion here. No reason to go down that path.


First, that wording is misleading. Sweeteners with no calories cannot directly cause weight gain. Excess calories are what cause weight gain. Second, an indirect cause, by its very nature, eliminates the root variable as being a sole source. So, you can't just say "diet soda indirectly causes weight gain," because you are ignoring the intervening factor. And since we know that you cannot gain weight without the presence of excess calories, it is tackling THAT issue that should be the focus.

Take your own advice:

It's not misleading at all. It's your argument that's misleading. What you are doing is trying to base your argument on a very narrow interpretation of "cause". I get what you're doing. I simply reject the maneuver. If you narrow the focus down to the moments after ingestion, you can make an irrefutable argument that drinking water causes weight gain, for crying out loud.