When I switched from regular soda to diet soda I lost about 15 pounds almost immediately. It turns out I was drinking a lot of soda and all that extra sugar did

When I switched from regular soda to diet soda I lost about 15 pounds almost immediately. It turns out I was drinking a lot of soda and all that extra sugar didn't help. However the effect quickly went away as my body got used to the diet soda, and then it didn't have much of an effect (and it seems like I found other high carb things to fill my day with). More recently I cut out diet soda entirely in favor of just water, but I've actually ended up gaining weight, mostly because in retrospect it seems like I've actually replaced a lot of the diet soda with beer (or at least there was a strong inverse correlation between my beer and diet soda consumption). So now I'm working on reducing my beer intake and filling in with the occasional diet soda when I really need some tasty carbonated beverage. Personally I've never liked flavored sparkling water. When I'm thirsty I prefer plain old water (as long as it's properly filtered), and occasionally I'll drink some unflavored sparkling water. But there's something refreshing about a cold beer or a diet dr pepper that flavored sparkling water just doesn't provide, and it seems that between those two the beer is a lot worse weight wise.