This troper loves diet soda. I much prefer Coke Zero and Pepsi Max to the sugary version, and for the life of me can't fathom why. I hate the low sugar versions of everything, except for carbonated drinks.

The flavor formulas for Diet Coke and regular Coke, at least as made in the U.S., are slightly but significantly different. Now that this troper has acclimatized to Diet Coke, regular Coke has a disproportionate taste of cinnamon.

This troper and three of his friends each went to Burger King one day, and proceeded to purchase one Quad Stacker each. We supplemented this with one side salad and one Value drink.

This troper used to work in a pizza place on a military base. It was one of those places where you get your own drink (we just provide the cup). Our version, therefore, was called "And a ''small'' Coke", not diet.

While this Troper was working at Steak N Shake, one time he got yelled at by a morbidly obese lady because we didn't have diet Dr. Pepper (we didn't have the regular pepper either) and the insinuation I wasn't interested in the lady's health as she was trying to lose weight. She had just ordered two meals for herself including some of the greasiest and fattening items on the menu ''plus'' a shake.

This troper feels the need to apologize to the above troper. This troper believes the above troper had the misfortune of meeting this troper's aunt.

This troper knows a girl who's notorious for this. My friends and I went swiming one day and she happened to come along. After an hour or two we got out to get some snacks. Everyone but her bought a soda and a small (though not healthy) snack. She got a lunchable and a diet coke. On top of all this, we were planning to get pizza for dinner later on. It's no wonder she's morbidly obese.

This Troper gets diet sodas quite often just because he lives in America, where the standard sodas are made with corn syrup. In order of increasing tastiness, his preferences are: corn-syrup soda, diet soda (aspartame), diet soda (sucralose), cane-sugar soda. Unfortunately, the only way to get that last category anymore is to buy from a Mexican shop (not many of those in New England) or wait till stores sell kosher-for-Passover soda.

They're more readily available in the Southwest, one of the things this troper misses from his time in Phoenix. Coca-Cola tastes ''so'' much better made with cane sugar, ''and'' it's better for you.

Er, well, I may just be arguing semantics here, but I doubt that any kind of soda is good for you. It's just... less bad.

Back when I worked in the concession stand of a movie theater, one couple ordered a #2 combo (large popcorn and two large sodas) ''each''. All four sodas were Diet Coke.

This editor has pulled this off once or twice, with the rationale that there's no point in making an already bad situation worse. I also tend to get them if at a buffet, to take up space and reduce how much I eat.

This troper doesn't particularly watch what she eats, but hates the taste of full-sugar drinks. Diet Coke, Pepsi Max and Sprite Zero all the way!

This troper just prefers Diet Coke. Add that to being a BigEater...

I am not alone, except I can't even stand regular coke anymore

This Troper works at a fast-food restaurant and has seen this more times than she can say.

During my three years servitude pushing a register for [=McDonald's=], I still clearly remember two incredibly obese men standing in front of my register, both ordering the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese meals, super-sized, With A Diet Coke. I've been telling the story for years, and you can imagine how pleased I am now to find that it's a trope!

One possibility to consider here... This troper is a diabetic. While I don't do fast food a lot, I can fit it into my diet once in a while and not screw things up terribly. I can't handle a sugared soft drink though--''that's'' going to do Very Bad Things to my blood sugar...

This troper only drinks diet carbonated drinks for almost the same reason, except that her sister was diabetic since before she was born, and when the diet sodas finally lowered their prices in Brazil, their family only bought these. Not really a question of respect, but more like customs.

This troper dislikes sugar-sweetened cola drinks, but prefers the sugarfree variations over all other sodas. So whenever she eats out, she'll be ordering either a Diet Coke or plain old water.

I've been known to order steak, a baked potato with everything on it, and iced tea. But that's mostly 'cause I like iced tea.

You do realize iced tea has more sugar in it than most sodas except root beer, right? Your example doesn't qualify at all.

...if you're in the South, or a restaurant that only has bottle drinks. Anywhere else, iced tea has no sugar at all.

If you were in the South, you'd know the difference between iced tea (no sugar) and sweet tea (lots of sugar). I think it's in Canada that "iced tea" always comes sweetened.

Southern restaurants have started distinguishing between sweet tea and iced (unsweetened) tea? Great! Back when this troper had relatives living in the South, she learned the hard way to NEVER order iced tea because it would always come with a pound of sugar pre-added.

This Troper works at [=McDonald's=], which has a self-serve beverage station if you go into the building and order. You can get Coke, Diet Coke, Mello Yello, Sprite, Dr. Pepper (which a lot of people annoyingly call Mr. Pibb [or just "Pibb" - imagine that with a thick Kentucky accent -_-]), Powerade, or Lemonade and a thing of Sweet Tea and one of Unsweet Tea. However, This Troper's customers almost always fail to specify whether they'd like Sweet or Unsweet, and she almost always rings her customers up for Sweet, even if they come through the Drive-Thru.

*{{facepalm}}* Just get them plain tea. If they wanted sweet tea, it's punishment enough for the lack of specification that they have to drink it with granulated added rather than the sugar cooked in. If they ''meant'' just plain tea, the sugar can't be removed, so they're either miserable for no fault of their own, angry, and/or you have to get a replacement if they feel strongly enough about it.

She's in Kentucky. Outside urban areas, when people in the South ask for "a glass of tea" they mean sweet tea almost without exception.

Which makes sense if you've tasted both: the sugar almost makes it drinkable. I've lived in the South most of my life, and if you want a ''good'' cup of tea in the South? Don't drink iced, outside of a coffee shop or a Thai restaurant.

This troper explained to an acquaintance the difference. Having family from Tennessee, my grandmother maid sweet tea pretty much doubling per part of water, so it's much sweeter and stronger. There's a reason iced tea makers differentiate sweet tea and southern style. The annoying thing is going to other areas and asking if they have sweet tea. Raspberry iced tea is not sweet tea.

This troper once worked a concession stand where a rather fat man and his super-obese wife walked up, ordered four Nachos with Chile and cheese, two hotdogs, a few candy bars and two bottles of Diet Coke. When they said the diet Coke, they had a look of burden on their faces.

This troper asks for Pepsi Max shamelessly. He just thinks it tastes better.

This troper agrees as well. Normal Pepsi just doesn't taste as good.

This Troper doesn't even ''like'' Pepsi and agrees. Pespi Max is almost as good as Coke.

This troper's father will often order a fairly large quantity of high-protein, high-fat food and a diet soda or unsweetened tea. He's a diabetic.

Another troper's husband (also diabetic) will do the same thing. He'll also occasionally indulge in a dessert along with a diet drink (his reasoning is that if he can safely eat X amount of carb/sugar in one meal without doing nasty things to his pancreas, he'll go with a diet beverage to be able to use that X amount for something more rewarding).

This troper is a bit of an inversion... He'll order something like a salad, and a normal-sugar drink. Artificial sweeteners (of ''all'' sorts) just taste horribly disgusting to him. He want's really healthy? Water.

This troper lost a mild amount of weight after switching to diet drinks...which, er, led to him eating even more fast food than he had been before and gaining it back with change. So, uh, yeah...

While this troper's friends ate some yoghurt for lunch, he had this look of disgust on his face and said he hated the taste. She asked him why he was eating it, he replied "I'm trying to eat healthier. You know, gotta stay fit for sport." When he finished the yoghurt we walked to the shop near school so this troper could get some ramen for her lunch. He got a hotdog, a bag of crisps, nachos with chili and sour cream, a meat pie and some fudge. And a bottle of water. "Look, I told them to hold the ketchup and mustard on the hotdog, okay?"

This editor pretty much only drinks Diet Coke at Burger King, despite going for the Whopper and large onion rings more often than not. That's mainly because I'm more concerned about my teeth than my weight. :P

Erm... do you know how much ''acid'' there is in sodas?

Actually, no. The only acidic substances in most sodas (Coca-Cola notwithstanding) are sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid -- and that's if you stretch the definition of an acid to include a sodium salt used as a preservative. While it's true that the two might react to form benzine, a carcinogen, other factors, such as a substance's shelf life, need to be taken into consideration. The levels of sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid present in any single serving of soda are insignificantly small to begin with, so no-one is likely to die unless they drink really stale soda. Which expired in 1991 or earlier. After being exposed to open air far too long.

This chemistry-loving troper would like to point out several things wrong with the above statement. Firstly, benzine is unrelated to the benzoates. The compound which the above troper probably mistook it for, benzene, is not the conjugate acid of sodium benzoate - which happens to be benzoic acid - mildly carcinogenic, but nowhere as toxic as benzene. The conjugate base of benzene is phenyllithium, which counts as minor Fuel for its violent reactions with water, air, and even the mildest of acids. No soda manufacturer would be stupid enough to put that in. Ascorbic acid is just good old vitamin C. And there is plenty of acid in soda - carbonic acid, the hydrated form of carbon dioxide.

This troper would also like to point out the obvious fact that if you put soda on pH paper (regular or diet), it turns bright red, so even without knowing which exact acid it contains, you damn well know that it's quite acidic. And as the above troper stated, all soda is carbonated, and thus contains a lot of carbonic acid.

Colas tend to contain phosphoric acid. While the health implications aren't clear-cut one way or the other, this troper attempts to limit herself to one 12-oz. Diet Coke per day, after breaking a wrist in a fall that at the time didn't seem particularly traumatic.

When this troper was at a resterant with her friend, her friend accidently got someone else's order. The order was a double bacon cheese burger, onion rings, and a diet coke.

This troper absolutely despises Diet Coke. Her father, however, has been drinking it for years.

Kid}} This Troper switched off to diet sodas when he was actively dieting. Now that the weight's come off, he allows himself the occasional indulgence of a nasty, fatty, greasy meal, but still has the diet soda because he's come to enjoy the flavor. With the exception of Diet Coke, which is vile, horrible stuff unless it's neutralized with a squeeze of lemon.

My nutritionist actually warned me to ''stop'' drinking Diet Coke while dieting because the various food colorings and artificial sweetener slows the metabolism. So while you don't ingest calories, the ones you do are burned more slowly. This is one of the few things I have yet to independently confirm, but since he helped me drop 36 Kg I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Give him the benefit of the doubt on weight loss itself; his knowledge of artificial sweeteners is nothing but Internet chain email bullshit. There is no plausible mechanism by which what he's suggesting could occur, let alone actual evidence supporting his claim.

This troper subverts this. I'm trying to watch my weight but refuse to drink anything but full sugar drinks. They don't taste right.

Truth. Artificial sweeteners are very evident where they're used in ''anything'', and just taste ''wrong''. Some of the newer ones (such as used in "Coke Zero" and other "new" versions of "diet" drinks) aren't as bad as aspartame, but they're still very obvious and taste terrible to some people (myself included). However, I've just been avoiding drinking high-sugar drinks entirely - juices, certain types of iced tea, milk, or just plain old water work very well.

Same... They taste terrible. Just not 'right'. The newer ones aren't as bad as aspartame, but the only 'diet' drink I've ever sorta-liked was diet Dr. Pepper - everything else is terrible. Instead, I've just cut back on those sort of drinks, going for either less when I do have them, or just drinking water/juice/milk.

Concur. Have avoided artificial sweeteners since my mom got scared of aspartame when we were kids, and nowadays, even if there were no chance of the artificials having any negative effects, they'd still taste horrible enough to be completely unpalatable. (Note: They taste sweeter than normal sugar. So it's not because I want my drink to be sweeter.) Also, my whole family caught on instantly when we accidentally picked up a sugar-free Tang mix (realized something had Gone Horribly Wrong with the first few sips, and hadn't even read the label yet), and when the subsequent internet search revealed that Tang had permanently changed its formula (so now you can't buy regular-sugar Tang ''at all''), we sadly gave it up for good. And I sent a couple complaints to the company, hoping they'd reconsider and make the original formula available again. Soon.

Make it an online peition, and This Troper will ''gladly'' sign. How DARE they!

I asked Kraft on Facebook, and I found out that normal Tang '''''has been brought back.''''' I found it at Wal-mart and delicious.

Totally agree. I absolutely despise those 'Diet drinks taste just like the ordinary ones, they totally do!' ads, because I've tasted them and ''no they bloody don't.''

This troper prefers Diet Coke over regular Coke simply because she can't stand the taste of regular Coke.

This troper has noted that the difference between sugar and sweetener is that sugar is stickier and fuller-bodied, sweetener is thinner and a scoche sweeter. I prefer diet colas, but sugared lemon-limes; diet and regular Mountain Dew are two entirely different drinks; and diet root beer and diet orange soda are not worth the bottle they're sold in.

This troper agrees wholeheartedly, especially about the Mountain Dew.

This Troper drank an entire can of Diet Mt. Dew ''on a dare''. That shit is not soda. How dare it masquerade as anything remotely resembling Mt. Dew!

This troper despises Diet Coke, and grew up drinking Diet Pepsi with her grandfather, who was allergic to Coca-Cola. Seriously, Coke gave him hives. No idea why. They were fond of eating fried eggs, bacon, and buttered toast...with Diet Pepsi to balance it out. (However, since his death, she can't stand the taste of Diet Pepsi either, and can only drink non-diet soda as a result.)

This troper did it at a [=McDonald's=], and was EXTREMELY satisfied. Well... not THAT extremely satisfied....

Diet Coke is just about the only thing this troper drinks besides water (I'm not at drinking age yet, so that may change), so this comes up a lot. However, I also have another variant. "I'll have the full rack of barbecue ribs smothered in barbecue sauce with french fries on the side... and a salad.

Restaurant salads usually come with 500+ calories of dressing and croutons piled on them. If you want to eat healthy you probably should not eat out at all.

Inverted for This Troper. She will often take her perfectly healthy/normal lunch with a serving or five of whatever delicious soda is available (most often Dr Pepper).

Totally subverted by this rather chubby troper. She hates any drinkable liquid that isn't water, coffee or chocolate milk.

This troper hates Diet sodas. I don't like the taste of them, and the only soda I will drink is either Red Bull cola or Jolt cola that uses Spelanda. I have also been known to drink a Jones soda now and then.

Jones Soda is the greatest soda company on the face of the Earth.

This Troper agrees, and thinks the bottles should be bigger.

This troper orders Coke Zero not because of the taste or the fizziness, just for the caffeine. She just likes cold drinks, even in winter, and she usually has no time to make/order some coffee and let it cool. But it's also sort of an inversion -- all she eats is fruit and veggies, ''heaps'' of them.

This troper always gets his burgers and fries with a Diet Coke. Though to be fair, he does work out at least two times a week.

This troper had a friend who announced she was switching from pop to tea. She still puts two or three sugars in her cup, though.

So true for this troper, as she cannot go a day without some form of Diet Pepsi. While she'll drink regular pop, it's only if there's no available diet option.

This troper used to work at a Dairy Queen back in high school. We had a lady come in and order around 5000-6000 calories (I did the math) of greasy, fried food. And a diet pepsi, because she was trying to lose weight. FacePalm.

This Troper's parents' stinginess resulted in the only soda we ever got being cheap, store brand soda. Add the formidable weight of both this troper's parents, and you realize exactly why I love diet soda more than regular. Except for Dr. Pepper, Elixir of Conquerors.

This troper reacts badly to sugar. Fats are less of a problem in the short term. Plus there's more caffeine in a diet coke.

This troper prefers normal soda and refuses to drink diet because it seems really off. She can stand to drink caffeine free if it's not summer or a Friday night, however, despite the lack of the much needed caffeine that she believes makes it taste better. Then again, this troper also shudders at anything considered "diet" because she's already skinny and the very word seems like a bad idea. This troper believes there is no point in using This Troper in Troper Tales.

This troper goes for Coke Zero whenever she's given the choice, because drinking that much sugar makes her crash like hell a couple of hours later.

This Troper spent the first twelve years of her life convinced - thanks to her mother - that Diet Anything was worse than regular, in both taste and health (artificial sugar < actual sugar). There was half a box of Diet Coke lying around because her older sister's boyfriend either can't or won't drink anything else. Cue Magnezone's mom walking in on her at eleven PM eating a granola bar and some Diet Coke.

It's pretty hard to imagine something worse for your health than 50 grams of corn syrup in a can. It's pure sugar, which your body converts to fat more readily than any other substance. Even if diet soda still used cyclamate (the artificial sweetener that was banned after a cancer scare), you'd still be better off drinking it than regular soda.

This Troper only ever drinks Diet Coke ever since her mother stopped buying her (the troper) Dr. Pepper. This Troper has never looked back, which is good since she easily drinks about 2 gallons of the diet soda a day.

This Troper's English class had to rewrite and perform our own version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Playing on the the name Egeus this troper rewrote the name to eggsandbaconeus. While not funny at first the name grew every time it was said until the end where it took about three minutes to say. The last version of course ended with the line.

This Troper recently switched to drinking squash (a mixture of fruit juice, water, flavourings and sugar/sweetner that you dilute at home), partly because she liked none of the flavours of water offered at the local supermarket, and partly because it's cheap (20p per diluted litre). She was halfway through a bottle when she realised that the syrupy taste was because of the use of glucose-fructose syrup/high-fructose corn syup in place of sugar. She now does her best to only buy no added sugar versions.

This troper has no problems eating fattening thing, but will avoid the sugary drinks because he's diabetic, and a non-diet coke would do bad bad things to his blood sugar levels.

Well this troper pretty much drinks nothing but diet soda, and lots of it (typically Diet Pepsi, but recently switched to Coke Zero). Not to lose weight but just because he enjoys soda and if he's not drinking diet soda, he'll be drinking ''regular'' soda with all that refined sugar. Which do you think is better? Also consider diabetes runs in his family. And before you ask why doesn't he drink water: 1) Ew, and 2) He's also asthmatic and the caffeine helps him breathe a bit easier. Also, coffee tastes so bitter to him no matter what, it makes him literally gag. And as for tea...TEA?...ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? '''TEA???'''

This troper HATES all soda, and will only drink water, milk, and some beverages with chocolate. The one time I had soda, I was getting low blood sugar and was force fed the soda. Ugh...

This Troper ''hates'' water and anything sweetened with anything other than sugar. That being said, Coke Zero will be her only option when she hits 40 and her metabolism screeches to a halt.

This troper works at Subway. He sees a lot of people who get footlongs (Sometimes two), load up ''every single vegetable'' and oftentimes ''four kinds of sauces'' making the total sandwiches weigh about 8 pounds with how much stuff is in there, then they fill up with a Diet coke and easily eat about a couple thousand calories. Yes, they eat ''both'' footlongs, filling their stomach with ''eight pounds of food'', and they do it ''right in front of the vein''. Naturally they also are the pickiest customers ever. ("I WANT ALL THE SAUCES ON AT THE END! I BELIEVE IT WILL TASTE DIFFERENT THAT WAY!" - which it ''doesn't'', fyi) He has also seen other customers ask for loads and loads of cheese on a Chicken Bacon Ranch, or extra bacon, double meat, and the like and then customers get a diet coke and cheetos. It's incredible how some of these people can ''eat''.

Perfectly justified, though, when it's to go. Four halves of a sandwich can last almost a week, and a small diet soda (my preference is the unsugared bottled fruit drink, I ''hate'' diet sodas with a passion) doesn't last more than one meal or so in the refrigerator.

This troper will never drink regular sodas if she can help it; because her mom always ordered her a diet coke with her Happy Meal on those rare trips to [=McDonald's=], she just grew up with it. Thus regular coke/Coke Zero and sodas with real sugar don't mesh with her.

This troper's sisters are national-level swimmers. When they eat during meets, they often get high-protein, high-fat meals because they're cheaper and, at the end of the day, there's nothing more satisfying than having a couple thousand calories sitting in your stomach waiting to replace the several thousand calories you just burned that day. However, drinking soda with high-fructose corn syrup often causes them to crash because the sugar is so quickly metabolized. When you've paid several hundred dollars just to enter events and several more actually getting to the events (not to mention the several thousand you've paid in ''just the past few months'' to train up to that level and the years' worth of training and previous meets to be able to participate in the first place), coming in second to a girl a year younger than you and missing breaking the record by about .01 seconds because you were too tired because the soda kept you from getting a good night's sleep last night tends to be frustrating. Thankfully, it only happened once.

I've never worked at a food place, but I have seen examples of this. I once saw a rather large man (a nice way to say fat ass) order enough food to feed me for a week (not really saying a whole lot since I don't eat much, but it still wasn't a small order) and a small drink. Guess what he filled the cup with. I quickly left and went to burn off the calories I got from just looking at this.

Orange juice?

This troper prefers Splenda-sweetened anything, but refuses to go near aspartame. That crap makes formaldehyde build up in your blood stream from the phenylalanine. She rarely drinks soda, though, but the last time she did, it was aspartame-sweetened Diet Coke, because she's been having problems with her hypothyroidism, and one of the things that exacerbates that is, dun dun dun, phenylalanine deficiency. Oh, the irony.

Actually, the Formaldehyde thing is a myth. The amount of methanol in an average dose of aspartanme isn't even near the amount in a glass of tomato juice (yes, suprising enough, plants have wood alcohol in them in trace amounts, whod've thunk). The methanol breaks down into formaldehyde, yes...BUT the human body can metabolize formaldehyde into Formic acid and then into water and carbon dioxide. So while technically, yes, Formaldehyde can be toxic, the amounts you infuse into your body even if you drink ludicrous amounts of soda is so minute that there's not much more than a snowball's chance in hell of a buildup. The only real scientifically found danger to aspartame is if you have certain rare genetic conditions that mean your body cannot process phenylalaine

I have no idea what this trope is, but is there really anyone who actually likes diet pop (or worse, thinks it's better for them)?

Unfortunately, yes. I for one am not one of them. Eurgh.

Diet ''soda'' doesn't stick to my mouth, and I'll take whatever vaguely-defined effects the internet dieticians of the world care to come up with the very real effects that 240 calories per bottle can have (FFS, two of those = one light meal!) So yes, and yes.

This troper once had to buy enough fast-food for everyone at a friend's birthday party, so he went to [=McDonald's=] and ordered 36 Double Cheeseburgers and a small mellow yellow, the look on the cashiers face was priceless.

This troper worked in a coffee shop for years, and was always boggled by the people who wanted a double mocha with extra chocolate and whipped cream...nonfat. Because nonfat milk is going to make any appreciable difference at all in the calorie and sugar content of that thing.

If this troper is going to have a fizzy drink, it will be Diet Irn-Bru, Coke Zero or Pepsi Max, 1) because they taste better, and 2) because she has traintracks (braces) and it's (slightly) better for her teeth. But she usually has water (yuck) or apple and blackcurrant juice.

This troper finds diet sodas to taste better than regular sodas. I also find water to be a little off putting, because my well water has a slightly strange taste (and twenty years of drinking it has made an impression.) I also usually eat only one or two meals a day, so I eat bigger meals... Now, take a day when I'm particularly hungry and I'm out with my father who insists on paying. HilarityEnsues.

This troper is a notorious {{Big Eater}}, but only drinks Diet Soda in restaurants.

I can't stand the taste of diet soda (outside of a few exceptions). It either tastes horribly bland or vile (depending on the drink). One of the only exceptions is Blue Monster (the otherwise unnamed one with the blue label that happens to be diet).

The only diet sodas This Troper ''can'' stand include Sprite, 7-Up, and Mountain Dew, though I admit it took me a ''long'' time to get used to it. Don't get me started on ''caffeine-free'' diet drinks. (Caffeine free + sugar free = ''taste free''... but unfortunately ''not'' aftertaste-free! BLECCH!) Then again, I don't eat as much as some people. There have been days I've gone from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with nothing but a cheeseburger, a bag of Doritos, and two 20-ounce bottles of diet cola, and then a large (but healthy) meal for dinner after getting home from work.

This troper nearly got diabetes back in Feburary 2009. If it wasn't for his pre-diabetic mother, he would either have a full blown case of type-2 or possibly dead. Since then, I stopped drinking the corn syrup-laden drinks that I would buy at $1 for 32oz at the local Exxon On The Run and started drinking the diet versions. They're ok, but though I usually prefer Jones Soda, "Dublin" Dr. Pepper (Dr. Pepper from a small town in Texas that still uses pure cane Imperial Sugar. They resell it at Fry's.), Mexican/Passover Coke, or Pepsi throwback (the limited release cane sugar Pepsi). He also drinks a lot more water than he used to.

This troper prefers diet soda to regular because his mouth feels sticky after drinking sugared sodas. His favourite sodas aren't available in diet versions, though...

This Troper occasionally does the equivalent that only New Yorkers would get. When eating out at some diner, my companions will all order a shake. When the waiter gets to me, I will order a bacon cheeseburger, ask for mayonnaise on the side, and then order an egg cream, while explaining to my companions that shakes have too many calories. Admittedly, this is largely a holdover from when I actually was trying to lose weight and would have ordered the egg cream to accompany something more healthy.

This troper does it mostly for the "no point making a bad situation worse" reason somebody above gave. It helps that he can't tell the difference between diet and normal.

This guy adheres to this trope and got called on it...after which he pointed out how many refills he had presently had and how many calories said refills would have had if they had been sugary drinks. You may notice that this guy does not adhere to the Perfect Solution Fallacy.

This troper is the complete opposite: he generally has small meals, yet will only drink diet soft drinks if there is no other option. His logic? He wants to gain weight to stop himself weighing less than eight stone. Having said that, he prefers coke zero to normal coke.

This troper switched to diet sodas in a weight loss attempt, and never really switched back. On the plus side, Coke Zero gets on real well with Wild Turkey.

This troper was watching a middle school improv competition of a scene that took place at a fast-food restaurant. The girl in the scene ordered a long list of items... and a diet ''water''. Absurd. So absurd in fact that she cracked up, cracking up her improv partner, and breaking the scene. "I don't like soda..." she continued.

Since this troper got braces put on, he always orders Vanilla shakes instead of Chocolate. Mainly because it was hard enough giving up Coca-cola.

Let's not mince words: I'm a fat guy. But I much prefer the taste of skim milk to whole, so that's the kind of milk I buy.

This troperette's father, regardless of meals sometimes (although early-morning corn tortillas'n'refried beans w/ such a drink to wash it down is a real good idea)

I love Diet Coke, but only because I can't stand the taste of regular Coke, I find it WAY too sweet for me. I HATE it when I order a Diet Coke and somebody asks me if I'm on a diet or trying to lose weight. NO, I'm not, I just prefer the taste of Diet Coke! Then again, I don't drink much else except water, the occasional coffee and sometimes juice.

Change "diet coke" with "water" and you get me, specially with desserts.

One more here for the list of fat tropers who likes high fat unhealthy food but finds sugary drinks to be way too sweet for me. So I'll order multiple double quarter pounders with cheese but get a diet coke to drink because I simply can't stomach normal sodas anymore.

While we were in class talking about 'going the middle road' so to speak in eating at fast food places while eating healthy. I asked, "Is it the same as ordering a double whopper, an order of french fries and a diet soda?" The teacher agreed. A classmate of mine who sat in the table in front of me and is a little large, muttered, "Oh no. You got me." Everyone chuckled at that.

I do this all the time, and I'm only a mildly pudgy 251 pounds (for my 6'9" body frame), ordering about two supersize double quarter punder meals with Coke Zero per day, every so often with a [=McFlurry=], and not counting my weekend, Sunday (Which the midday meal of which consists of two candy bars or a Big Cookie, an order of sweet-and-sour pork and a soda) and Monday. I figure all the menial labour my janitor job puts me through keeps me in check. I like to joke that if I didn't excersize so much, I'd be the size of a car. I also stopped buying candy every monday durning my parent's bible study, and lost 13 pounds. :D

This troper is likely morbidly obese(280 pounds, 5' 7" ) and is rather indifferent to the fact, but I sometimes get cravings for diet sodas, or get them to keep my family from complaining. I'm well aware of this trope, and because of it I usually don't get diet anything when eating out(lest some asshole look down his nose at me or make false assumptions), but I'll get diet two-liters at the grocery store and drink them at home. It's a sad state of affairs when you bastards have made fat kids ashamed to drink diet sodas in public. I's like "Oh, you getting diet coke? That won't make you drop the pounds, fatty." or "You're getting regular coke? That sugar won't make you any skinner fat ass." I like the taste, and nothing more. I actually hope I get diabetes sometimes, but that's for an entirely different reason.

This troper actually figures that drinking diet soda is overall bad for you -- because while it might not add so many calories, the acids still will eat at your teeth, and it's still got the rather surprising salt content. It's just plain better to limit your intake of regular soda (preferably the stuff still made with sugar) than to drink same amount of diet.

This troper's father: "See, in college I'd always order the biggest pizza in the store, along with a Diet Coke. And people would tell me how stupid that was, since getting the biggest pizza is fattening to begin with. No, they're wrong. See, I want a giant pizza; I know I'm overindulging. But I want an extra slice. So I'll get the Diet Coke so I can ''get'' the extra slice." (Please note that said father has metabolism at essentially the speed of light and is incapable of getting fat no matter how much he eats. ''This has been witnessed.'' For 15 years.)

Bloody Hell, I OWN THIS TROPE! I always eat the "heart-attack-on-a-plate" food, but almost always get diet soda. Main exception will be if I'm out late, I'll drink Sprite/Sierra Mist- caffeine keeps me awake, and it's a bit much to expect a place to stock caffeine-free diet drinks. I was once (jokingly) called out on it by the manager of a pizza shop next to the pharmacy where I used to work. I ordered a personal-size all-meat pizza and Diet Coke. "What the hell's the point?!" he asked. He then wondered if I popped a Lipitor as soon as I got back to work. WHY do I drink diet? I've gotten to where the non-diet sodas taste way to sweet to me.

This Troper, whenever at a restaurant, orders a Diet Coke/Pepsi with her food, although she tries her best to go healthy. It was when she was younger and would order whatever looked appetizing and wouldn't overindulge (of course, a lot of those appetizing meals were high in calories...)

This Troper drinks Diet Coke mostly because his parents drink Diet Coke. All the time. For pretty much as long as he can remember. I'm not sure ''why'' they do this, but I've pretty much never been able to detect a weird "diet" taste, so much as a weird "sugar" taste. I used to be able to drink regular sodas, though I only did so rarely, and nowadays I find that drinking regular soda gives me horrible headaches. Whenever I come across Dr. Pepper with cane sugar though, I put up with the headaches.

Averted by this troper, she hates all kinds of diet sodas with a passion and will only drink them if there's nothing else in the house. Including water. (This goes for low-fat milk too. I seem to be the only person that does not prefer it.)

This troper only drinks non-diet sodas if there's no diet. Regular soda is too sweet for her.

This Troper worked in McDonalds when he was younger and would see this happen over and over again. Sometimes, the diet soda was switched out for a salad.

This tropette usually goes for the regular sodas because I prefer the taste to diet sodas, but will make an exception for Coke Zero and its cherry-flavored counterpart, especially if she's already had a lot of high-calorie meals that day. She is also the smallest-figured, tiniest-built BigEater she knows, with quite a fast metabolism.

I just started working at a movie theater and this happens all the time! People will buy some candy, a large popcorn(extra butter!), a hot dog and some pretzels and then ask for a diet drink. Guess what, people, even with the diet drink that's still more calories then you need for three days and almost no health value.

This Troper is a recovering soda addict currently burning his way down to a respectable weight. I've lost 65 75 pounds so far and the single biggest impact there was the soda. The math bears it out. Use a calorie tracker app with a good online database and a bar code scanner and you'd be surprised what you can eat and still make your calorie targets. Sure, I still need to work on nutrients but when you're in it for the long haul, the key word is ''sustainable.'' I'll try to quit the diet soda once I'm down to goal (another eighty five to go). Updated.

This troper avoids regular soda for the same reason she avoids red wine: it's a migraine trigger. This trope, with the implied (or outright stated) "hur hur, having a diet drink with a big meal, you're so stupid!" got really tedious a really long time ago.

This troper stopped drinking soda entirely out of fear for his dental health. He's a subversion, though: his replacement was lemonade, which is frankly just as caloritic.

This troper ''loves'' diet soda, even though her parents are fine with her ordering regular soda. I find it to have both a much better aftertaste and to be more sugar filled~! Not to mention that I worry about my weight, even though I'm average in everything...

Before I started my tea-drinking habit, I'd avoided caffeine for several years, and therefore couldn't handle it when I did drink it. Sodas with both caffeine and sugar were out of the question. I'd feel like my skin was crawling, my heart was about to pound out of my chest, and then my brain was going to explode. So if no caffeine-free options were available, diet was (and still is) my next preference. I get self-conscious ordering diet drinks in front of friends though, out of fear of invoking this trope.

Edgy has experienced this first hand working at a Ryan's Family Steakhouse. I coined the phrase, Negative Salad, because a lot of customers would ruined the nutritional value of a salad through the topplings. Ham, cheese, lots of dressing, etc. One lady even put fried chicken breading on her salad.

Another troper tale from a McDonald's wage slave; Several years ago, a morbidly obese woman in a short pink mini-skirt ordered a Big Mac with an extra patty and two strips of bacon, super sized fries (when they still had them, mind you) a double quarter-pounder, and... a large Diet Coke. I couldn't decide whether to chuckle or feel queasy.