Tag Archives: drinking

A Wet Calorie is Still a Calorie

Just because a calorie is in the form of a beverage does not make it less caloric. In fact, the opposite can be true. Liquid calories disguised as fancy coffee drinks, sodas, and alcoholic beverages can pack on the pounds as easily as a birthday cake slapped on your thighs.

A 20-ounce soda is 250 empty calories, a 12-ounce mocha coffee drink adds up to around 300, the average cocktail has 300 or more, and a glass of wine or beer packs on an extra 150. If you drink several of these drinks, you can kiss any dieting efforts goodbye. Even one soda a day over time can sabotage your goal to be slim. By drinking a soda every day for a year, you could put on more than 15 pounds!

Some of the most caloric drinks are smoothies, specialty coffee drinks and alcoholic beverages. A large banana in a smoothie has about 120 calories. Some specialty coffee drinks can have up to 800 calories. A six-pack of beer can have up to 900 calories.

What to Drink

Turn to water, iced tea, and coffee as your beverages of choice. Each has zero calories, and if you enjoy milk in your coffee, switch to low-fat or nonfat milk. Water can actually make you feel full faster and lead to you eating less. By swapping soda for water you will be sure to lose weight.

How Much Water to Drink

One basic way to figure out how much water you need is to take your body weight in pounds and divide that number in half. That gives you the number of ounces of water per day that you should drink. In other words, if you weigh 160 pounds, you should drink at least 80 ounces of water per day. If you exercise, you will need to add one more eight ounce glass of water for every 20 minutes you workout.

If you drink any alcohol, make sure you also drink the same amount of water or more. And do the same thing the morning after!