Sunday, August 7, 2011

Rule #1-Soda In Moderation, If At All

It's no surprise that cutting out soda or other high calorie drinks will lead to losing weight! According to www.sugarstacks.com, a 12 oz. Coca-Cola has 140 calories. That's 39 grams of sugar.An 8 oz. Snapple ice tea is 100 calories, 23 grams of sugar, a slightly better choice. One of these a day probably won't do much harm. But if you're sucking down three cans of soda a day, you're looking at adding on 420 calories of something with no nutritional value at all. And I'm not even going to go into the sodium count (bloated bellies, anyone?)

A medium iced coffee from McDonalds, according to the McDonald's menu, has 190 calories. A small coffee Coolata from Duncan Donuts, according to the Duncan Donuts site, is 400 calories. (A medium is 600, a large is 800.)

So what happens if you stick with water or unsweetened tea and coffee? You instantly take away at least 100 calories every day. If you usually drink an iced coffee or Coolatas every day, you could end up saving 200 or more calories a day. That adds up, folks. And just by changing what you drink you can lose weight over a period of a month.

What I drink every day: a cup of tea with a 1/2 teaspoon of raw sugar, and a cup of coffee from my Keurig with 1/3 teaspoon sugar and some powdered creamer, which generally adds 50 calories to my drink. Some days I go without the creamer. After that I drink water or iced tea flavored with either lemon or a little agave nectar. (Thanks to my friend Katie W. for introducing me to agave nectar!) I rarely drink soda or juice, although sometimes I use juice in recipes or smoothies.

Try going without your usual sugary drinks for a month. Let me know what happens. Tell me how many pounds you lose. I'll bet you'll surprise yourself!

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