Quote (carteblanche @ Aug 9 2016 08:30pm)
IMO what's healthy vs unhealthy really depends on your opportunity cost.
if you're comparing 36 oz coke zero vs 36 oz water, then obviously coke zero is bad for you.
if you're comparing 36 oz coke zero vs no drink alternative, then stopping it will lead to dehydration and all the bad things that come from it (eg: kidney stones, dry skin, stretch marks, headaches). so coke zero is better than drinking nothing.
on the other hand, say you're comparing 36 oz coke zero vs 36 oz coke. the regular coke has 420 calories. if you do a simple replacement, it leads to 0.84 lb of fat per week. if you do that for a year, you'll gain around 40 lbs of fat which leads to a lot of health issues on its own. so i'd take the coke zero over that.
another scenario is you switch to regular coke, but you reduce your other food intake so that your calories break even. if you replaced 420 calories worth of less desirable food (eg: saturated fats, trans fat, sodium) to maintain your weight, then suddenly regular coke is better for you because you removed worse things from your diet. if you replaced 420 calories worth of highly desirable food (eg: avocados, salads, beans), then regular coke is bad because you removed better things from your diet.
tldr it depends on what you're replacing it with.
just looking for a non water cold beverage that won't interfere with what i eat (currently in a cutting down phase)