Announcing The Liquid on Drinkable Calories

09/03/2007

Awareness of some daily habits can help you lose weight easily. Certain habits are done without thinking, but are not calorie effective at all. In fact, without the knowledge which I am about to share with you, you may even wonder why you are not losing weight. You have been good all week at watching your calorie intake and exercising. So why is that that when you have committed yourself to do well and have a good week, the scale does not reflect your effort?

One of the reasons could be that you are drinking a lot of calories everyday without being aware of their high caloric content. Walter Willett, M.D., chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass., and co-author of "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy" (Simon & Schuster, 2002) brings the attention to this knowledge. As he mentions, “Fruit juices, coffee drinks and regular soda are liquid calories that don't yield much satiety. An 8-ounce regular soda contains 103 calories; the same amount of orange juice has 110. And this does not even include alcoholic beverages which are generally high in calories and are not easy to say no to, after the first glass of wine or beer. One coffee drink can have 300 calories.” This is definitely food for thought or should we say “drink for thought”.

Take a quick assessment of all the drinks you had today or yesterday. How many calories do you think they accounted for? Does this shock you? If so, that is okay. Now you know where these “empty” calories are coming from and you can do something about it.

Your next step would be to decide on which drinkable calories you are going to cut down on as part of your success weight loss program. In my book, nothing is taboo. If you make something taboo, the chances are quite high that you will most probably crave it even more. So you do not have to cut these things out of your eating plan completely, but limiting them might be a great idea. For example I would not cut out your favorite glass of wine with your loved one on your regular Friday night date. Nor would I suggest you miss out on your delicious cappuccino with your friends on Sunday mornings. These are occasions that hold special value to you and are important in your life. Juts remember, nothing has to be taboo – HOW you work it into your success program is what will count at the end of the day.

So for today, decide on what drinkable calories you would like to cut down on and how much of it you want to limit. Be specific in order to set yourself up for a winning week. If you are like me, who likes both hot and cold drinks, choose low- or no-calorie beverages such as herbal teas, water, coffee without cream or sugar, seltzer and skim milk. A cup of chamomile tea before going to bed will not only help with your weight loss, but will give you good nights sleep too.