[tombert]

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing.

Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal.

I guess it turns out that I wasn't addicted to fast food, I was addicted to "unlimited soda", and Taco Bell is the closest place to my house that had free soda refills. When I made it so that I could get as much cold soda as I wanted directly in my house, I completely lost the urge to go to Taco Bell, and I would eat comparatively-healthier stuff in my house. Within about a month, I had lost about 10lbs, and completely lost my cravings for real sugar.

After that I started more aggressively counting calories and ended up getting to about 191lbs, which is more or less in the "normal" range for someone my height.

I guess I thought that caffeine addiction didn't affect me, somehow, but I'm pretty convinced I was wrong about that. The kegerator more or less worked like a nicotine patch, but nowadays I've transitioned to the caffeine-free versions of soda now.

ETA: Just looked it up, it actually was just barely on the "obese" side.

[macNchz]

Soda really is something—I drank plenty as a kid, but I kind of soured on it after an interactive exercise in a college class, where we each guessed the amount of sugar in a can of soda, scooped the sugar into a glass, and then were shown the actual amount. In seeing that, I realized I would simply never put that much sugar in anything on my own, if I were sweetening a drink rather than buying something pre-sweetened.

[tombert]

I've always done the diet sodas (Coke or Pepsi, whatever's cheaper), but I'm sure there's a lot of extra sugar in all the crap I was getting at Taco Bell.

I also had a habit of doing a small splash of sugary soda, with with the remaining ~95% as diet, which in a vacuum is probably medically insignificant but I think it was enough to keep sugar cravings going.

[bglazer]

A decade ago, I saw an image that showed the amount of table sugar in a can of Coke and I haven't willingly drank one since.

[m463]

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=cubes+of+sugar+in+a+coke&ia...

:)

[n4r9]

Thanks for sharing. Diet soft drinks get a bad rap but are imo an incredibly useful tool for health. I can probably count on my fingers how many standard soda drinks I had in 2024, compared to 1 or 2 diet soda drinks per day on average. I get the enjoyment of something sweet, fizzy and with a kick, but without the calories. And they're often just as tasty; in fact, I'm not sure I can even taste the difference today between Dr Pepper standard and Dr Pepper Zero.

[tombert]

I grew up with it, so I actually prefer Diet Coke over regular Coke at this point. I don't remember the last time I just had a can of regular sugary soda...it's been awhile.

That said, I will acknowledge that the relatively-consequence-free nature of Diet Coke makes it a lot more addictive to me. It's much easier for me to drink Diet Coke every day, and lots of it, because I know that the likelihood of me actually facing a short-term consequence from it is relatively small.

At least now, I've transitioned away from the caffeine, so the only thing I really need to worry about is the sweeteners, which seem to be "mostly harmless" from the research I've done, so maybe I don't need to go any further.

[antisthenes]

> Diet soft drinks get a bad rap but are imo an incredibly useful tool for health.

If you have diet sodas on one hand and obesity on the other, they're definitely the lesser evil. But that's also a pretty low bar, since obesity is THE co-morbidity factor for just about everything.

[n4r9]

As far as I can tell, they're by far a lesser evil. There seems to be two health arguments against diet soda: that they can erode teeth and that they can degrade insulin function. The first of these is just as true for - say - eating an orange, and can be combatted by drinking or rinsing with water afterwards. The second is still a subject of research.

[jayd16]

Short of a kegeraror, one can develop a taste for tea or black coffee. As long as you don't put anything in it, it's basically zero calorie and trivial to prepare.

[tombert]

I tried, but I absolutely despise coffee. I think I'm really sensitive to the bitter compounds, I think it's vile even when I put a lot of sweetener in it, to a point where a small irrational part of me is kind of convinced that everyone who says they like it playing some kind of elaborate and expensive joke on me. Tea isn't as bad but I still dislike it.

That said, if you can develop a taste for coffee or tea, that's definitely the cheaper option.

[BenjiWiebe]

Have you tried adding cream (but no sweetener)? I've done it on occasion to get down a cup of coffee that's more bitter than usual.

[tombert]

I have; I think I've tried everything. I've tried instant coffee black, I've tried it with creamer, with sugar, with artificial sweetener. I've tried it at chain restaurants like McDonalds, I've tried yuppier places like Starbucks and a bunch of their concoctions, I've tried hipster independent places and different blends from them.

I've tried cold brew, coffee slushies, different quantities of frapp'd up milk, different coarseness of the grind, different types of beans, different roast levels, etc. and the only time it's tolerable is when there's so much milk and sugar in there that it's debatable to even call it "coffee" anymore. I can't even stand coffee ice cream.

I think it's just not for me.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

You might be a supertaster and have extra and more sensitive tastebuds. The extra sensitivity means they tend to prefer sweeter (and/or salty) foods and stay away from bitter food/drinks to greater extent.

https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/supertaster...

[ifyoubuildit]

I used to be this way. I ended up liking coffee through a pretty ridiculous way - microwaving half of a Starbucks cold brew that I dumped a bunch of milk into.

Now I can drink whatever coffee with nothing in it, though I wouldn't say it tastes "good". It just scratches that itch. I think it's more of a minor compulsion than a preference.

[anovikov]

Overdoing on coffee, especially being very tall, is quite dangerous for one's heart...

[plorkyeran]

It is not worse than getting the same amount of caffeine from diet soda, which is the point of comparison here.

[fortran77]

> In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi...

That's obese! I'm always amazed how may fat people are walking around who think they're athletic, buff, and fit.

I'm 5'10" 155# at age 61. I count every calorie. It's the only way today with so much convienient, calorie laden, "addictive" food. The body-positivity folks would tell you that it's a mental illness and obsessive to track every calorie, but if I didn't, I'd gain wait. The calories-in/out formula for weight gain and loss is simple, a law of physics, and works for everyone.

[tombert]

If you look at the edit on the bottom, I actually acknowledged that already :)

I never thought I was “healthy” at that weight, to be clear.

[edanm]

Very interesting what you write about caffeine. I've never been a coffee drinker, having never "developed the taste" for it, but I drink a lot of sugar-free soft drinks (Pepsi Zero is my preference).

I'm fairly sure it acts as my source of caffeine, because on days that I don't drink it in the morning, I get headaches. (It took me a while to connect this, I happened to be reading that headaches are a common symptom of caffeine withdrawal.)

[jaybrendansmith]

Depends on your build. I'm 6'5" but my 'normal' weight when I was 19 with zero fat was 225 lbs. 30 years later at 250lbs, I'm continually annoyed that my BMI shows me as obese.

[tombert]

I don’t really exercise, there’s basically no muscle, so I’m inclined to believe the “obese” diagnosis.

[MrSkelter]

As a guy your height 225lbs is not “zero fat” unless you are absolutely stacked with muscle. Likely on steroids unless you are a bodybuilder and eat and train like one.

Though he was shorter, natural bodybuilder Sean Connery was 6’3” and 190lbs at the start of his bond run. That’s a useful data point. Not only is he close to an ideal male physique for non bodybuilders, he was also very fit. Ad an inch and a half to him and 35lbs and that’s not “zero fat”.

Similarly I was once depressed and 260lbs. I was definitely obese.

Things are distorted in the US. We consider fat to be morbidly obese and dismiss fatness as normal now. Look at Trump. That’s normal obesity. Loot at Musk. That’s overweight.

[jaybrendansmith]

I definitely had some muscle for sure, on a fairly large frame. But I could see my ribs and had no belly (then). My point is BMI does not seem valid for tall people, unless perhaps there's something I'm missing.