102419 Diet Coke and Bang

MetCon//

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I often get the question, “what do you think about Bang?” If you didn’t already know, Bang is an “energy” soda that has gained a lot of popularity as an alternative to the typical sugar-laden energy sodas like Red Bull and Monster.

You have a friend, we all know someone, who claims, “I just drink the regular soda, sugar is better than all those nasty chemicals!” I’ll entertain that notion, good thinking my friend, way to be a health conscious warrior…. double fisting your McDonals dollar menu nuggets made from chicken goo… way to choose your battles buddy.

The 2019 reality is that the two illnesses sucking us dry and inflating the cost of health care beyond belief are Diabetes (processed carbohydrates) and COPD (smoking). There is really no honest reality to the notion that artificial sweeteners even come close to causing the metabolic derangement that is ravaging society. 300lb+ humans don’t exist because of diet cokes. 300lb humans exist because of high sugar drinks and cinnamon toast crunch.

“But there were studies on rats and aspartame and I think they got cancer or something.” Scientist studying the effects on mice, fed those mice cans upon cans of Diet Rite in the 80’s or early 90’s. A research mouse weighs about a pound or less. Are you drinking kegs of Diet Dr. Pepper a day? Didn’t think so.

“But what about the carbonation? I heard that it’s bad and causes you to lose bone density!” Also false. Bubbles guys, don’t be afraid of bubbles. They’re pleasant and… air.

From the standpoint of metabolizing a reasonable amount of energy at a reasonable pace, if the liquids you drink are void of sugar, you’re probably going to be ok with the ingredients. While I don’t hold a lot of confidence in the FDA or other government health agencies, they do a decent job of making sure the drinks you buy don’t have truly nasty things like Ephedra and the like.

Since I truly think that from a metabolic view, it really settles the safety question of sugar-free flavored beverages the conversation becomes more about Caffeine.

Caffeine is a wonderful drug from which all happiness is derived! I’m only mostly joking. It can be a legal and powerful performance enhancer and leveraged for performance and productivity. That being said, there is a big difference between using it to become super human and using it to become regular human. If you need caffeine to be a normal functioning member of society, that’s called “dependency” not “leveraging”. Caffeine, with all of it’s potential benefits will also jack with your sleep. You may not have known, but your genetics determine the rate at which you metabolize Caffeine, with some people clearing a serving (generally 80mg) as fast as an hour and some as long as 30 hours and well after the energy giving benefits have worn off. Think of your baseline energy and ambition. You should use caffeine to push you beyond that line, and well before you’re supposed to be sleeping. If you feel like you need that bump to feel normal or a bare minimum productiveness, you don’t need more caffeine, you need better sleep. it’s easy to get caught in a radical cycle of caffineating too late, messing up your sleep, and making you crash the next day, “man I could really use a coffee to get through this afternoon.” You see where this is going. Next time you feel like an afternoon Bang would help, consider the trade off. Maybe skipping that Bang, grinding through until bed and sleeping well, will pay off more than just getting by on a little more caffeine. Chances are, the afternoon bump won’t even help that much because you’re so used to Caffeine. The amount that it disrupts your sleep isn’t dependent upon how much you “felt” it; you can not even feel the productive effects of Caffeine and it will still mess you up at night.

Someone asked me about their kids drinking Bang or Pre-workout, and i hadn’t given it much thought. I’m not well versed in the research, but I believe that the common thought is that there may be a growth stunting issue and I’d venture a theory that if there is such a thing, it would come from disrupted sleep, which is when kids grow and adults heal. If your Teen were a reasonable human making wise decisions about their health and sleep habits (this is comedy gold btw!), leveraging caffeine for performance purposes might be ok. I mean sports performance, not Mt. Dew and pizza party performance.

A benefit that I see other than Caffeine, would be the hydration potential of diet sodas and sugar-free drinks. Hydration isn’t just about drinking water. Hydration on a molecular and cellular level is water binding to something. To make that bond, water binds to minerals with an electric charge (electrolytes). As active people the electrolyte we sweat out the most is sodium and the typical diet-soda-type drink has about 40mg of sodium, and while that’s not nearly enough, water has less and it’s boring. Should you replace your water consumption with diet coke? No, to that as well, remember, caffeine.

On the spectrum of pure poison from satan himself to truly healthy it would look like this:

Coca-Cola, Monster, Dutch Bros, Starbucks Frappucino— As bad as Cigarettes, you might as well smoke cigarettes. “But isn’t it ok for me, I’m not fat?” Skinny cigarette smokers are nasty on their insides, same with sugar drinkers.

Diet Soda, Bang, Sugar-free pre-workout, low-sugar drinks like FitAid— Some good, some bad, but depends on your genetics, habits, goals, and lifestyle.

Coffee, Tea— Mostly good. Drink liberally if you don’t have a heart or kidney condition. Keep it to the first half of the day if it has caffeine.

Water, Mineral Water, Sparkling water— drink up without fear!