Damaging Drinks

By: Stephanie Woodruff
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With the start of the New Year millions will be buying diet books, visiting the dietician, and taking more time out of their day to frequent the gym. More than 50% of all New Year resolutions will focus on some aspect of losing weight, eating healthy, sticking with this diet or that, going to the gym more often, or fitting into size 8 jeans. To address every aspect of those resolutions to help a person accomplish and make it past February is unrealistic. However, the following with help pinpoint a few traps that can make reaching a goal of weight loss more obtainable and sustainable.

Many people focus on food items as being the sole cause of weight loss and weight gain, overlooking a major calorie culprit. Drinks. Soda pop. Coffee. Juice. Milk. Cosmopolitans. Martinis. You name it. If you must drink soda pop, you could save over 100 calories by choosing diet soda. One can of cola has about 140 calories and 39grams of sugar. Diet cola has zero calories and zero grams of sugar. Now that is not saying diet cola is a great choice. If you are a soda drinker, try to limit it to one can a day and replace the rest with health beneficial tea or water. Coffee itself is not a huge contributor to calories; an eight-ounce cup of brewed black coffee is about 5 calories. Calories begin to add up when people try to mask the flavor of coffee by adding all sorts of sugary substances. When making a latte, mocha, or cappuccino, save yourself some calories by asking for 1% or skim milk. Despite what Dr. Atkins says, 1% of skim milk is a better choice than half-and-half to cut calories and ultimately loose weight.

Few people realize that juice is a hidden source of calories. Juice is good for you right? Well, yes, to a point. Everything in moderation. Let's touch on the juice vs. fruit issue. Why does fruit juice have more calories than fruit? When you have a piece of fruit you are eating a wonderful source of fiber. Eating fiber keeps your blood sugars more level. This in turn helps your body feel more full for a longer period of time and provide your body with wonderful nutritional and non-nutritional benefits of fiber. Often juices are not the pure form of juice on the label. Sugar is also often added. Juice doesn't contain fiber, even the OJ with pulp. Therefore you miss out on the benefits of fiber. However, juice is not something to avoid, just limit. Remind yourself what 8 ounces looks like and have that once a day. Try to get your servings of fruit in whole form.

Now to the fun stuff! The holidays have come and gone, or for some still in full swing. One shot of all 80 proof alcoholic beverage, including rum and vodka, contain 97 calories. How many did you have last night? Are you a whiskey or a gin drinker? You are looking at 105 and 110 calories per shot. Now let's start adding chasers and mixers. You can see where I am going. Is your drink a double rum and coke? In round one you just drank about 287 calories. For every one-gram of alcohol there are 9 calories to go along with it. For those of you who don't drink hard alcohol, you won't get away that easy. 12 ounces of regular beer has about 150 calories, light beer will save you 50. Wine will give you 100 calories. Let's put this in perspective. If you consume a six pack a regular beers you will also consume 900 calories. To burn off those extra calories you would have to jog nonstop for two hours. Not only is alcohol loaded with calories, alcohol also prevents the body from burning stored fat for energy until all of the alcohol is cleared from the body. Oh! And one more thing, alcohol often stimulates the appetites and lets just say the places open at 2 o'clock in the morning are not the healthiest options.

I am not saying never to drink these items; I simply want to make you aware of traps that are out there that may prevent you from reaching your goal. Remember to pay attention to the nutrition fact label. When you go out with your friends remember to pace yourself, for other reasons apart from nutrition as well. Keep in mind, water is the source of life so drink up!