You should stop drinking diet drinks with artificial sweeteners because several large-scale studies found a positive correlation between consumption of artificial sweeteners and weight gain, according to information provided by the "Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine." Artificial sweeteners are chemical or natural substances that provide a sweetness similar to sugar but with fewer calories.
Vegetable Juice
Make vegetable juice in the kitchen with a juicer. Low-sodium vegetable juice, when incorporated into your daily diet, increases your number of vegetable servings. It also might help weight loss when combined with a calorie-restricted diet in overweight people with metabolic syndrome, according to a study conducted by the Department of Nutrition at the University of California-Davis.
Metabolic syndrome, one of the fastest-growing worldwide disease entities, includes conditions including too much fat around your waist. The results, published in the February 2010 issue of "Nutrition Journal", report participants who consumed eight to 10 fluid ounces of vegetable juice daily lost more weight than those who did not drink juice but did receive diet counseling.
Water
Drinking water is associated with weight loss in a short-term experiment conducted on 173 overweight women aged 25 to 50 by the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in Oakland, Calif. Water has no artificial sweeteners, and it's caffeine-free. Researchers tested for association between relative increase of water intake and its effect on weight loss for 12 months. The results, published in the November 2008 issue of the journal "Obesity," found the women who increased their water intake lost weight even if they did not follow their diet or exercise program.
Green Tea
Green tea, an everyday beverage in some East Asian countries including Japan and South Korea, comes from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. You can consume this no-calorie homemade diet drink hot or cold. Although some supplement brands claim green tea extract helps you lose weight, scientific tests have not found the same results. Green tea does contain antioxidants called polyphenols, according to information provided by the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Green tea comes in pre-measured tea bags, and if it says "Certified Organic" on the label, it is grown without the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Follow the directions, which generally instruct you to steep the tea bag in freshly boiled water for several minutes. Add a small amount of honey or non-sweetened fruit juice to add sweetness.
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