Think Before You Drink

Are you looking to lose weight in 2010?  If you are, you are not alone. More than 65% of American’s are now overweight to obese.  Yet America spends more than 160 Billion dollars a year to combat the growing weight epidemic.  Some of this money may be well spent on gym memberships and other things, but I believe a lot of the problem lies in our individual choices.  Certain things that the average American consumes on a daily basis are greatly contributing to the overall state of our poor health.  Let’s take a look at one of America’s favorite choices that may be costing our waistlines dearly: beverages.

We talk a lot about watching what we eat, but if we gave just as much thought to what we drank each day, we would, on average, save ourselves 450 calories a day!  That’s close to 1/3 of your daily intake of calories!

Read these staggering beverage facts and you decide if “drinking responsibly” should mean more to you than just “don’t drink and drive.”

• American’s drink twice as many calories as we did 30 years ago.
• If you cut back your intake of sweetened beverages by just ONE day a week, you would save enough calories to lose more than 6 1/2 lbs. a year!
• If you cut it by TWO days you would shave off 13 lbs (University of North Carolina)!
• 28% of all drinks we consume are carbonated soft drinks.
• One soda contains 13 teaspoons of sugar (as opposed to the 9 tsp. in Coke 20 years ago–they raised it without anyone knowing or caring!)
• The average American consumes 55 gallons of soda per year.
• Soda makes up 10-15% of teenage girls’ daily caloric intake.
• Families switching to “juice” aren’t doing their children any favors. Juice, on average, contains more sugar than a serving of soda.
• In 4th-6th graders, sweetened juice or other beverages make up 51% of all fluid intake! (research shows that students who drink sweetened beverages take in an extra 337 calories a day on average, and less than half the amount of real fruits than their less sugar saturated peers; Eat This, Not That).

So, let’s do the math to see how all this sugar is hurting not only our waistlines, but our childrens’ waistlines!  Statistics show that 40% of children in the U.S. are now overweight or obese. This number is on the rise.   A Minnesota study found that children were almost three times more likely to drink soda 5 of more times a week when their parents regularly drank soda. So our choices are effecting theirs!

13 teaspoons in one can of soda is alot….and that’s the smallest can. The larger bottles or super sizes are far more!  When converted to calories, 13 teaspoons of sugar is 208 calories.   If you are a regular “drinker,” you just may be defeating your weight loss goals, not by the food you are eating, but by the beverages you are drinking.

Just for fun, I will show you a few of the worst beverages on the market to consume.  If you are trying to watch your weight, run as fast as you can away from these drinks!

1. Snapple Agave Melon Antioxidant water (20 ounce bottle)

Catchy name, lots of “buzz” words. “Agave” = popular, healthy sugar. “Antioxidant” = we all want that, right?  “Water” = how bad could water be?

Well, this “healthy” water has 33g of sugar, the same as consuming 3 bowls of Honey Comb cereal!

2. Sunkist (20 ounces)

This rings in a wopping 88 g of sugar and 325 calories.  The sugar equivalent is 17 Chewy Chips Ahoy! cookies.  I don’t about you, but I would rather eat 17 cookies if I am going to choose to have that much sugar at one time!

3. Naked Protein Zone Banana Chocolate (15.2 Ounces)

Naked is a healthy brand, right?  Better read your labels before you guzzle!  This supposedly healthy drink has 32 g of protein (good, right), but there are 70g of sugar and 480 calories!  You could eat 5 Breyers Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches for this load of sugar.

So, the moral of the story, lose weight by drinking sensibly.