Are Your Beverage Choices Causing Your Muffin Top and Moobs???

Question of the Day: How often do you read the nutritional label on the packaging of the juice, coffee/tea sweeteners, soda, etc. that you drink?

If you don't at all, you really need to start. That drink your guzzling down could be one of the reasons you haven't met your weight loss goals or find those goals hard to maintain. Never thought about that, huh? Consider this, a 12 oz can of Coca-Cola has 140 calories with a whopping 39 grams of sugar. A non-diabetic person shouldn't consume more than about 40 grams of added sugar per day*. For all you visual folks, 4 grams of sugar is equivalent to 1 teaspoon.

Now, 140 calories may not be a lot but if you've already had

• juice in the morning
• a cup of coffee (or 2) with sweeteners,
• perhaps a soda with lunch and/or
• some kind of sweetened drink for dinner
• Oh and let us not forget those mocha latte drinks that everyone loves

you have added anywhere from 450-600 extra calories to the calories you're already consuming from your meals. Plus you have exceeded the recommended sugar intake but more than double in some instances. Remember that those calories will need to be burned off!

According to a document published in Nutrition Action HealthLetter, the average American consumes 21% of their calories from drink consumption. That is about 150-300 more calories more than 30 years ago, half being from soft drinks and fruit drinks. These are EMPTY CALORIES, high in calories but LOW in nutritional value.

Many people pick up juice because they think well this has fruit in it so it must be okay for me...wrong!! Let's look at a few labels.

• Tropicana Orange Juice Homestyle (8fl oz): Calories 110; Sugar 22g
• Tropicana Fruit Punch (10fl oz): Calories 170; Sugar 40g
• Starbucks Vanilla Frapuccino (Grande): Calories 300; Sugar 66g
• Starbucks Chai Frapuccion (Grande): Calories 250; Sugar 48g
• McDonald's Sweet Tea (small): Calories 120; Sugar 30g
• McDonald's Wild Berry Smoothie (small): Calories 210; Sugar 44g
• Sprite (12 oz): Calories 140; Sugar 38g

These are just a few stats for some familiar beverages...WOW!!! I really wanted to try that McDonald's smoothie, but not so much now. Those numbers are a bit disturbing! Sugar helps to increase fat storage. It contributes to fat storage by creating excess glucose and excess insulin. This could be the reason why your muffin top (that extra stomach hanging over the top of your pants) is ever so visible and why you men are seeing those moobs (man boobs). Please don't get me wrong, not all sugar is bad sugar but that's another post.

Remember that many times the stats on the back of your favorite drink are only for one serving, so that's however many grams of sugar/calories per serving. If that beverage has two servings multiply the sugar and calorie amount by two. Yeah, I know, those numbers can start to get out of control. So next time you're thirsty you might want to consider a nice, cold glass of H20 instead.

PE@CE!