Hey guys! Dancing Dragonair here! I told you guys you'd hear from me again soon, and here I am! Hopefully I'll run this once every Tuesday with a different bit of advice, or it may drop down to every other Tuesday. Not sure yet.
For today, I want to talk about drinks. When we start out thinking, "I want to lose weight," we may not tend to think about the calories we're not actually eating. We don't think about what's in that soda we had with lunch, or the effects of that tasty sweet tea we had yesterday afternoon. Because we don't always watch those as closely, they can add up, and fast.
A few points I'd like to make.
1. Sodas add up fast. Not only is the sugar content in regular soda atrocious (a point I'll get on a soapbox about some other time), but a 20-ounce bottle of Coke has 240 calories that you don't need to be taking in. None of those 240 calories has any nutritional value to them--something you'll frequently hear called "empty calories". When you consider that the average person is supposed to take in around 2,000-2,500 calories a day (and then work some of them off!), about 10 bottles of soda contain your entire recommended calorie intake. That may seem like a lot, and it is. But then think of the last time you went out and ate, and how many refills of that Coke or Pepsi you got. Last time I got soda, it was 3 or 4. It all adds up fast if you're not paying attention. How can you change this? If you're going to get soda, make sure one serving stays one serving. I'm not going to ever say to cut something out completely--that's not a very realistic thing to do, and if you start out cold turkey I've found it more likely that you'll fall off the bandwagon in a couple of weeks. But if you get soda at a restaurant, after your first is done, consider switching to water. Or just start out with water anyway--not only is it healthier, but as a broke college student, that's a dollar and a half I don't have to spend!
2. Not everything marketed as a "healthy" drink is necessarily calorie free. Staying off my sugar soapbox again, you may think that guzzling Vitamin Water is a better solution than drinking soda. And it is. But it's also not a calorie-free option. One 20-ounce bottle contains 125 calories. Again, that's better than soda, and it IS a healthier choice. But you still have to be careful with it, because those calories do add up, and ALL of them come from sugar. They are tasty, though. So what can you do? There are different fruits you can cut up to flavor water without including all that sugar. These are also tasty and are something you have to worry a bit less about. Try it with your favorite fruits--cucumber can add a nice flavor to water, as can berries or citrus fruits.
3. For anyone in the audience who does drink, if you're watching calories in your drinks, that's just one more reason to be careful with alcohol. We all know that getting drunk isn't necessarily a good life choice. But if you're trying to watch what you're taking in, take a look at the empty calories you're taking in when you pick up a drink with alcohol in it. The average serving of beer contains around 150 calories, a serving of wine anywhere between 75 and 105 depending on the type, and an ounce of stronger things like vodka and rum around 65. And let's talk about those "tasty girly drinks" while we're at it. As just a few easy-to-find examples, Mike's Hard Lemonade contains 220 calories per bottle. Daiquiris have around 120. The average cooler has about 150. We should all be drinking in moderation anyway--here's just one more reason. What can you do? Be careful and pay attention to what you do wind up drinking, which you should be doing anyway. I'm not here to preach about abstaining from alcohol. That's not my job. I'm just saying be careful, drink in moderation, and know that each of those drinks contains empty calories that you really don't need if you're trying to watch your caloric intake.
So, what's the take-home message of all of this? Most doctors will tell you, if you discuss a desire to lose weight, that one of the easiest and most important changes you can make is to stop drinking your calories. These are a couple of easy things to watch out for, and if you're watching out for these things you can change them.
As a side note, all of the values I cited in this post were found with basic google searches.
That's all for now!
Dancing Dragonair, signing off.
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