Monday, May 14, 2018

What Can I Drink?


This is a question I get quite often from my own clients. If you are trying to lose weight, what you drink is as important as what you eat. Here are some guidelines:

Avoid
1) Any beverage with added sugar: This includes sodas and sports drinks. As you have probably heard, added sugar is a big part of weight gain for most of us and eliminating it is a big part of weight loss. Drinking calories is just a bad idea if you are trying to lose weight.

2) Fruit and vegetable juices: When you juice a fruit or vegetable, you are concentrating the sugars and eliminating the fiber. You end up with a drink that can spike your blood sugar and cause a reactive hypoglycemia that can increase hunger and subsequent energy intake. Similar to #1 above, these beverages also contain calories.

3) Drinks with artificial sweeteners: This includes diet soda and diet iced tea. Although these beverages are fine for an occasional treat, having them every day can perpetuate cravings for sugar and other refined carbohydrates. I advise my clients to have these kinds of drinks just a couple of times a week when they are allowed to cheat on their diet.

Allowed
1) Filtered tap or bottled water. A squeeze of a fresh lemon, lime or even an orange brings this to a whole new level.

2) Club soda. There are some really good unsweetened flavored club sodas on the market right now. In my opinion, Polar is the best.

3) Decaffeinated coffee or tea, either hot or iced.

Can the allowed beverages be considered boring? Maybe. You know what is not boring, hitting your goal weight.


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