One of them eh? ;) Pepsi Max is not the worst offender, still not healthy or cheap compared to water. My way of losing weight was to ignore all recommendations about healthy nutrition while I carefully counted weekly input of calories through an Excel spreadsheet. I ate whatever I wanted to eat, but in small portions. Replaced all soda with water. I did it that way because I knew I could stop eating junkfood and I didn't want to sweat over bad conscience every time I did. Eventually I adopted a more healthy diet when and I had already built motivation based on the weight loss achieved so far and further loss came down to margins. This worked for me, but I think the most important thing is to find something one can stick through over time.