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The main purpose of a diet soda is that it doesn't have any sugar, and therefore, no calories either. What defines "diet" isn't regulated, but every diet soda I've seen indeed has less than or equal to one Calorie.

I suspect that it could very well be true that diet soda doesn't help you lose weight, but if so, it isn't the fault of the diet soda that you aren't losing weight. The more calories you consume, the more "full" you feel, and likewise, simply drinking diet soda isn't going to help you shed pounds if you're consuming something else in lieu of those calories.

Let's say for example that as part of your daily routine, instead of drinking a regular soda (about 150 calories) you decide to drink a diet soda, and have a chocolate chip cookie (typically about 150 calories) with it. In this scenario, you're still retaining the same calorie intake, so you aren't going to shed any pounds that you otherwise wouldn't have.

Having said all of the above, indeed you *can* use diet soda as part of your weight loss plan, but at the end of the day your calorie intake must be less than your Basal Metabolic Rate.

Oh and for anybody who wants to know how to lose weight, it's dead simple, just follow this formula:

Nc = F - (Bmr + E)

Where Nc = Net Calories, F = food calories consumed, Bmr = Basal Metabolic Rate, E = Calories burned during exercise.

So long as Nc is less than zero, you're losing weight. How fast you're losing weight depends on how much deficit. One pound of fat is roughly 3600 calories. As a rule of thumb, your food intake shouldn't be less than around 1800 calories per day for males, 1200 for females, and if you go below these figures, your liver slows down your metabolism (aka starvation mode) and you get tired all the time lose weight slower.

Also one thing to remember about calories: They are a total sum of protein, fat, carbohydrates, and alcohol. How much of each you need is debatable, but I've found that getting calories mostly from protein and fat (aka low-carb) works best for me (not to mention, low carb also got rid of my cholesterol problem.)

1500 - 1700 is the lower edge for nutrition for females/males

My BMR is 1820. That's my caloric requirement just to stay in bed all day and do nothing. I am an otherwise average 33 year old male, 5'10", 175 lbs. Throw the modifier in for my activity level (moderate) and my need is increased to 2,821 kcals/day.

In other words your claims are total bullshit and you're talking out of your ass. I would slowly starve to death while doing nothing at 1,500 kcal/day. Toss even light activity into the equation and the starvation process happens that much faster....

1500 - 1700 is the lower edge for nutrition for females/males

My BMR is 1820. That's my caloric requirement just to stay in bed all day and do nothing. I am an otherwise average 33 year old male, 5'10", 175 lbs. Throw the modifier in for my activity level (moderate) and my need is increased to 2,821 kcals/day.

In other words your claims are total bullshit and you're talking out of your ass. I would slowly starve to death while doing nothing at 1,500 kcal/day. Toss even light activity into the equation and the starvation process happens that much faster....

Dude is over six feet tall. There's no way his maintenance calories was only 1800, 2400 sounds right. For example, if he's a mildly active 170 pounder, this calculator says he should eat 2560 calories a day to break even. Sure maybe I'm guess wrong or he's not active or what have you, but 1800 isn't even in the realm of possibility.

Surely, it's that eating measured amounts of a controlled substance forced him to measure his calories accurately...study after study show that people wildly mis-represent how many calories they consume.

that's not how you determine if someone is overweight. this is: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/

a lot of people weigh more than 154lbs and are perfectly healthy. you compare their weight against their height and adjust for gender. if you're a male 6 feet tall or more then you are underweight at 154lbs.

The High Fructose Corn Syrup in a can of soda is typically 55% fructose and 43% glucose, and 2% other sugars. An apple has 60% fructose, 40% glucose. Dextrose (table sugar) is 50/50. Do you seriously think that fructose is somehow more healthy than HFCS?

All these amateur armchair nutritionists are making people think weight loss is complicated. Calculate your basal metabolic rate. This is the amount of calories you burn laying in bed all day doing nothing. Click the link to the Harris Benedict Equation. This gives you a simple guide to account for your daily activity level by multiplying your BMR by a number from 1.2 to 1.9. This gives you your maintenance calories. Eat 500 calories a day less than this number and you'll lose weight. If you're not losing weight after two weeks, you've given yourself too much credit for activity, or you're not counting calories somewhere (like the people who smother food in ketchup or heap jelly on their morning toast because they think condiments don't count). Every time you lose 5 pounds, re-calculate.

If you're feeling like an over-achiever, do something like Couch to 5K in addition. I've lost thirty pounds doing these two things, and believe me when I tell you that when you were the fatass in high school who always walked during gym class, it feels fucking great to be able to run three miles.

I know you asked about workouts specifically, but you need to diet and exercise in order to have meaningful weight loss and maintenance. Weight loss really boils down to [caloriesOUT - caloriesIN]

caloriesOUT - In order to figure out what you burn doing nothing, you can calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/bmr-formula.php.

caloriesIN - You should keep a journal of what you eat on a daily basis and calculate the number of calories you consume http://www.thecaloriecounter.com/

For any other exercise activities, you can figure out how many calories you burned and add that to Calories OUT. http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

To maintain safe weight loss, caloriesOUT - caloriesIN = 500. That will have you safely burning off about a pound a week (3500 calories = 1 lb of fat). If you approach weight loss in a simple and straightforward manner, you will likely be more successful than if you just latch on to fad diets or routines. Weight maintenance is not a matter of diet or exercise but of lifestyle changes. Hope this helps!