Is Diet drinks/soda stopping my loss?

[Reason123]

Hey

In my first week I lost 14 lbs.
I was only drinking water, after being a beer, fresh juice, coffee with milk/sugar drinker.

My food intake has been the same in weeks 2 and 3 but I have not lost anything? I have stayed the same weight..

But I am drinking quite a bit of diet coke/lemonade every day, also have a few black coffees non sugar.

Is the caffeine in the drinks really stopping my losing weight???

[M Levac]

I remember Taubes saying coffee affects both lipolysis and insulin secretion, so in the end it's a wash. Diet drinks might be a problem. Remember, the point of low carb is to normalize hormones especially insulin, not to cut calories. So diet is not the only thing that affects fat loss. Drugs and other agents can affect fat loss too. Check this out:

http://www.why-low-carb-diets-work.com/unexplained-weight-loss.html

[cldade55]

Try cutting back on the artificial sweeteners before you reduce your caffeine intake. They do not agree with some people. Try drinking water with lemon or lime juice you are allowed 2 Tablespoons a day on induction. I have a water bottle on my desk at work and put in a teaspoon of lemon or lime juice for a 16 ounce bottle of water.

Also try plain or flavored seltzer if you can find it in the UK. It is the only carbonated beverage we drink at home. Then again, I live in Brooklyn, where selzter has its own aisle in the supermarket,

[teaser]

I guess that might depend on what you mean by "general low carb". What do you actually eat?

[JohnGibson]

Just an FYI:

Everybody's body is different.

Caffeine can affect insulin levels, so here is what you can do. Go back to what you were doing in the beginning and see if the weight starts to fall off again.

Also another thing to realize is that sometimes in the 2nd or 3rd week a body can stop losing weight as it starts to figure out what is happening.

Also Teaser is right I would suggest using the MYPLAN feature on this site and keep logs of your food. That way when you have questions you can send people to your logs and we can look it over.

[pinkmonkey]

Its a high possibility that the diet drinks are having an impact. I found, though, that during the 2nd and 3rd weeks on low carb I stop losing unless I drop my calories by 100-200 per day. Try giving up the artificial sweeteners for two weeks completely, then after only having 1-2 servings per day. Its hard at first, but after the two weeks you'll barely use them anymore. The only artificial sweetener I use now is liquid stevia, and even then its only a few drops in my protein shakes.

[Dodger]

It is not unusual for a rapid weight loss to be followed by a period of no loss. The initial loss was a lot of water. You can still be losing body fat and not showing a weight loss because your body is storing some water. In the long term, the water loss/gain is unimportant. It is the body fat loss that is important and that is hard to measure in the short term.