Danger Drinks

Danger Drinks and Healthy Alternatives

You've been working hard at making healthy changes to your diet and exercising regularly to lose weight. But there's more to weight loss than watching what you eat; the beverages you drink can also affect your progress. Are you sabotaging your diet by drinking unhealthful things?

When you crave something sweet-do you turn to POP?  Pop is filled with empty calories. On average, a can will be more than 150 calories and 8-10 teaspoons of sugar! Even diet sodas can adversely affect weight loss; the artificial sweeteners can leave you craving more sweets, which may sabotage your efforts to eat healthier.

Instead of pop, try seltzer water or flavored carbonated water and a slice of lemon or lime. Its refreshing without added sweeteners.

Watch out for Sports drinks. Even though they seem healthy -they are not calorie free. The bottles they come in can contain up to 32 ounces—not 8 ounces—which adds up to 240 calories per bottle.

Fancy coffee drinks are a prime example of how liquid calories can add up. Exotic blended iced coffee can have almost 200 calories or more per cup. Also, your daily coffee with Sugar and cream are not calorie free, so use as little as possible. If you take your coffee with three sugars and two creamers, you're adding about 100 calories and 3.5 grams of fat.

Try a low fat or fat-free creamer and Slowly taper your use of sugar and cream and go for flavored coffee beans to add taste without calories.

Your social life shouldn’t run dry when you are trying to lose weight and get healthy.

A good rule is to avoid frozen drinks like margaritas, daiquiris and pina coladas. These drinks have enough calories to count as a meal, and they're rarely made with any real fruit; they usually contain corn syrup and artificial flavors. A 10-ounce pina colada has close to 550 calories.

When choosing what to drink while mingling, choose a light beer, dry wine or liquor mixed with soda water instead of sugar-loaded beverages. Even better, choose soda water with a splash of juice for a fizzy, festive and low-calorie drink. Always drink a cup of water in between alcoholic beverages.

While it might be tasty, be careful of sweet teas.  A bottle or cup of sweet tea can contain up to four tablespoons of sugar!

All that sugar in sweet tea can spike your blood sugar and make you feel drained. Instead of plain tea, try flavored or green teas. Green tea, mint tea, or chai tea are all tasty options that require little to no sweeteners.

Also, when choosing "juice" --Beware when you stop at a convenience store or fill up your cup at a soda machine because Most of these juices contain little more than artificial flavorings, corn syrup and water which all add up to empty calories.

When you reach for juice, make sure it is 100% real juice. Vegetable juice is your best bet, as it is packed with vitamins and minerals and contains far less sugar and fewer calories than fruit juice.

Hunger can be mistaken for thirst.  Your best solution and our favorite is good old H 2 O--water. If you’re looking to lose weight and get into shape, keep the water pouring.

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