Another important note about diet soda is that they can often increase appetite, so try to avoid drinking them before or during a meal. Of course water is better but we all know damn well nobody is perfect lol. With thoughtful timing and good moderation you can enjoy diet drinks without worry (water still better though).

Well as long as you're doing yourself favors, try to go with water, and cut out soda for most of your diet.

But of course this isn't really an answer to the question at hand.

Already way ahead of ya! Zero only for me, unless there is no other option mind you. :P

I went to artificially sweetened sodas. I started getting these gnarly tension headaches. (And sometimes my jaw would hurt too.) Bummer. I bit the bullet and just went with drinking less soda instead.

Ice really makes water taste a lot better at least.

I can't stand replacement sugars and sweeteners. I do enjoy sodas, but I try to drink mostly water. They all have a metallic, chemical flavor that makes me feel queasy.

For anyone wondering difference between zero sugar and diet. Diet is meant to taste ‘lighter’ so it’s supposed to taste different where as zero sugar soda attempts to taste the same as the original.

My wife introduced me (53M) to Coke Zero on our honeymoon 18 years ago.

I dropped 10 pounds just from that one change. It didn't take me any time to "get used" to drinking it, like Diet Coke, which to this day still tastes metallic.

Adults really should minimized any and all calorie intake from drinking. So that means water, or zero calorie sodas and drinks.

Soda is great for energy if you’re doing crazy exercise though. On the Seattle to Portland ride, I was able to up my calorie intake by about 800 kcal just by drinking full sugar soda when I stopped to eat. I still wasn’t able to consume enough calories, but it got me a might closer.