diet drinks: myth or fact?

[Miranda]

I tried to type in "diet pop and fat" or to that affect in the search engine here, as I know this has been touched upon. The search results were really mixed up, so I'm posting...

Alright... what's the deal...

Does diet pop really make you fat, or what?

I have Googled some articles about it, thinking the sweetner itself was the culprit, but all this "he said, she said" jargon research came up. I starting getting a headache, so I decided to ask the wise women of TE.

I was a diet pop junkie. Then I totally ditched the stuff (for 3 years). Actually, to even try to drink it made me SICK. But, over the holidays, I somehow slide back to the diet Satan in a can. I refer to the skinny soda as Satan because I do know that for ME it causes major carb loaded (not good carbs) cravings.

Getting back on the band wagon, I'm detoxing from diet pop. Not a drop since the New Year. However, I'm sitting here drinking a Snapple "diet" green tea wondering if it will make me fat?

I hate green tea. I'm trying to drink it at the advice of a die hard green tea drinking GF who says it's so good for you, helps you lose weight, etc.

The Snapple bottle says it's sweetened with "Splenda"...

Is it the fake sugar that makes you crave the real stuff, or what?

Brain explosion clean up in aisle four...

EDIT: great *grumbles*, my green tea to go Lipton packets you dump in bottle water has fake sugar in it too. Crud, maybe the receipt for return is still in my coat pocket.