Nutritional Tips: Drinking Yourself Smaller!

Good Sunday to you Internets

            As I sit here eating lunch I thought an appropriate blog for this week would be on nutrition. As some of you know (if you don’t you know now), eating healthy is something I’ve always struggled with. Unless you are blessed by growing up in a home that understands proper nutrition, most of us are left fending for ourselves when it comes to what and when to put something in our mouths.

One of the major things I believe in as a fitness professional is adopting a lifestyle that a) you enjoy and b) is maintainable. This is true not only for fitness but also for nutrition. Furthermore, one part of consumption that I see people having the most trouble with is understanding how much liquids can affect their weight.

 That’s  why today I will give you 2 tips or changes you can make to your liquid diet (or what you drink) that can help you consume less calories/healthier options, which will benefit you in the long run.

Tip 1: Healthier Alcohol Consumption 

I know the words “health” and “alcohol” seems counter intuitive in the same sentence, but there are ways to adjust your alcohol consumption to become healthier or lose weight. Let’s face it, people drink, especially in the summer. Essentially, I’m talking to those people who acknowledge that drinking is part of their lifestyle.

Beer Drinkers:

If you are a beer drinker try a low calorie option like Michelob Ultra (95 calorie, 4%).  This may be tough to do at first (say if you’re a hard core Guinness drinker), but it will pay off in the long run if weight loss is a goal for you.

For example, say you have 4 beers with your friends. If you choose a low calorie option you’ll be consuming 380 calories versus 756 calories for a standard beer (I used Creemore for my calculations).

That’s a difference of 1 McDonalds cheese burger!

Spirit Drinkers:

            A lot of people don’t know that what you mix your drinks with can make a huge difference in your overall caloric intake.

For example, if you mix water with a “splash” of something for your vodka/whiskey rather than juice/pop you will consume a lot fewer calories over a night or week.

Say you have 4 vodka cranberries in an evening that equals 680 calories (source LiveStrong.com). If you drink your whiskey with coke that’s 780 calories!

If you substitute these drinks with vodka/whiskey water with a splash or cranberry, or even better with just a lemon and lime wedge you save a whopping 240 calories and 340 calories respectively!!!

To put that into perspective for you, say you choose to drink Vodka water every Saturday and you have 4 drinks in a Saturday, you’re saving almost 1000calories a month.

If you chose to ditch the pop for your whiskey coke, you’re saving even more at 1360 calories! That’s almost half a pound in pop a month for one night of drinking (1lbs= 3500 calories). 

 

Make smarted choices instead of dyning yourself the simple pleasures in life!

 

Tip # 2: Change your Non-Alcoholic Habits

            I’m not talking about drinking less with this tip. What I’m talking about is changing what and how you drinking during the day to day. This tip stems from tip 1, and can also impact the amount of calories you are consuming in the long run.

Juice

What I recommend when drinking juice is the following;

·         Only buy/drink juice from concentrate: To be honest internet, I’ve been had by juice industry until writing this blog! As you know, juice can either be concentrated or not. This will be indicated on the label. Up until now, I believed that juice is from concentrate has added sugar compared to juice not from concentrate (NFC). However, these be lies! Apparently, Tropicana created juice NFC in the 1960s to compete within the juice market (new=good?). What we don’t know is that juice not from concentrate is a) stored longer (up to a year before it’s sent to the stores ew), b) has less nutrients that non concentrated juice, c) is way more produced than non concentrated juice, and c) costs more! That being said, making your own juice is always the healthier option, but when buying juice, from concentrate is the way to go.

 

Don't be fooled by Tropicana's lies!

 

 

·         Dilute your juice with water: I know this sounds gross, but after you do it for awhile you will not be able to drink juice without water in it (I know this from experience). This will save you money, keep you hydrated, help your teeth, and you will consume up to 100 calories less per pint of orange juice! If you drink a pint of juice a day that’s 700 calories a week or a Big Mac.

Caffeine

Little changes to your caffeine consumption can also help with overall caloric consumption. I’m not going to get into a debate on whether caffeine is good or bad, because to be honest, I have seen valid arguments for both sides.

However, what you PUT in your caffeine can really make a difference. You can start small; say only adding 1 sugar instead of two or changing cream to milk. It may be hard at first but after awhile you will get used to it. Remember when you started drinking coffee and the first couple were gross, but you started to like it after awhile? Well, the same idea applies here.

Eventually, you can start replacing your triple triple with green tea, if you make small enough gradual changes. I do not recommend going from French vanilla every morning to black green tea on Monday because you’re “losing weight this time”. If you do this your body will suffer withdrawal from not getting its sugar fix and you will probably (in my experience, most definitely) relapse.

Here are some steps to follow if this is a sore spot in your diet.

1.      Reduce the sugar/cream in your caffeine for 1 week

2.      Remove the sugar OR cream in your caffeine for 1 week

3.      Continue step 2 for 1 more week

4.      Replace half of your normal caffeine with a herbal tea for one week

5.      Replace 75% of your normal caffeine with a herbal tea for one week, try and cut cream and sugar from normal caffeine completely.

6.      Try and only have your normal caffeine once a week. Herbal tea the rest of the week.

If you drink 2 large double/doubles per day on a regular work day you are consuming 1150calories in coffee per week or 4600calories per month. Changing to black coffee or herbal tea will save you almost all of those calories since they are 0-5cal for a large!

Remember, life is not a sprint race, its a marathon. The same goes for changes that you make in life. From my own personal experience, I’ve been working at eating healthier for 7 years now and I’m still learning and struggling.

As always, any questions/comments/concerns are always appreciated

Stay Strong

Byn