I drink Coke Zero (Coca Cola Zero, as we don't say Coke over here) and enjoy it, I also drink water, but rather at the gym where I drink 1,25liter at each training and with my protein shakes and also sometimes on its own at home, yes it happens. Coke Zero says there is no carbs and no fat, only aspartame and some chemicals, so it's fine... Today I read an article by Nick Nilsson (author of the fat loss program I'm following, Metabolic Surge) entitled "Nine Sure-Fire Ways To Gain Fat" in which he states:

Drinking soft drinks (even diet drinks) with fatty foods will make you gain fat

A sugary soft drink will result in a high insulin response. Insulin is a storage hormone - it helps the body store carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

There is also evidence to suggest that the artifical sweeteners commonly found in diet drinks can cause an insulin reaction in the body. It's a simple reaction to the sweetness, not carbs as there are no carbs in diet drinks. The body simply associates the taste of sweetness with the presence of carbs and assumes that carbs are present, increasing insulin levels in response.

What do you get when you have fatty foods in the presence of increased insulin levels? Simple. You get fat.

My advice is this: if you're going to eat fatty foods (we all do it at some point or other), drink water, not soft drinks or even diet soft drinks. Save the diet drinks for times when you're not eating fatty foods.

Because that reminded me of my brother telling me about the same thing, that diet drinks prepare your body to take all the subsequent carbs and transform it into fat (my brother is not a scientist and neither am I) and I was not 100% convinced about that: could the body be so dumb as to react not to pure chemistry but be fooled by a mere sweetness taste? So I asked.