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Are You Drinking Your Calories?

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Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer

It’s summer.  It’s hot.  You’re thirsty.  You want some shade and something cool – or maybe ice cold – to drink.

Just remember – a lot of those cool, refreshing drinks come with a hefty dose of calories.

Check Out The Calories

You might be surprised at the caloric content of a drink you have been having for years.  There is a wide variation in the number of calories even in the same category of drinks.  Do a little research and learn your best choice and then make that your drink of choice.  You often can be satisfied with, for instance, a bottle of beer that has around 100 calories rather than another brand that has around 300.

Of course, there’s always water, plain or flavored (beware the vitamin enhanced kinds with added sugar)!

Non-Alcoholic Drinks:

Water and Sports Drinks

  • Gatorade:  12 oz, 80 calories
  • Propel:  24 oz, 30 calories
  • SoBe Lifewater:  20 oz, 90 calories
  • Glaceau Smart Water:  33.8 oz, 0 calories
  • Vitamin Water:  20 oz, 125 calories
  • Vitamin Water 10:  20 oz, 25 calories

Iced Coffee and Tea Drinks

  • Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta:  16 oz, 430 calories
  • Dunkin’ Donuts Sweet Tea:  16 oz, 120 calories
  • Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino:  16 0z (grande), 240 calories
  • Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino, light:  16 oz grande), 110 calories
  • Tazo Unsweetened Shaken Iced Passion Tea:  0 calories
  • Iced Brewed Coffee with classic syrup:  12 oz (tall), 60 calories

Soda

  • Coke Classic:  one 20 oz bottle, 233 calories
  • Diet coke:  one 20 oz bottle, 0 calories
  • Mountain Dew:  one 20 oz bottle, 290 calories

Alcoholic Drinks:

Beer

  • Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale:  one 12 oz bottle, 330 calories
  • Samuel Adams Brown Ale:  160 calories
  • Amstel Light:  95 calories

Wine

  • Red Wine:  5 oz, 129 calories
  • White Wine:  5 oz, 120 calories
  • Sangria:  8 oz, 176 calories

Alcoholic Drinks

  • Mojito:  7 oz, 172 calories
  • Frozen Magarita: 4 oz, 180 calories (the average margarita glass holds 12 oz, 540 calories)
  • Mimosa:  137 calories
  • Gin and Tonic:  175 calories

SocialDieter Tip:

According to CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.  We tend to forget about the calories in sugared sports drinks and in sweetened ice teas, juices, and alcoholic beverages.  Alcohol has 7 calories per gram  — compared to protein and carbs which have 4 calories per gram and fat which has 9 calories per gram.     Couple the alcohol with sweetened juices, syrups, and, in some cases, soda, and you could be drinking a significant portion of your suggested daily calorie allowance.  There are low and lower calorie choices in each category of cold drinks.  Choose wisely, sip slowly, limit the repeats and/or alternate with water, seltzer, diet soda, or iced tea or coffee.

Are You On Sugar Overload?

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Do you have a clue about how much added sugar you eat each day?

Added sugar is the kind that doesn”t occur naturally, like in fruit, but is added during food processing, preparation, or at the table.

Because food labels show only grams or percentages of sugar in a product rather than the number of calories or teaspoons it contains, it’s hard to tell the number of teaspoons of sugar you’re eating. Food labels also don’t list which sugars are natural and which are added.  Sugar does masquerade under many different names and in many forms. You usually are aware that candy, cookies, and soda have sugar in them – although probably not how much.  You know when you are dousing your pancakes with syrup (how many teaspoons?) or dumping packages of sugar into your coffee for a “pick me up.”  But, who thinks of hamburger buns and crackers – or even ice cream or canned fruit — in terms of teaspoons of sugar?

Recommended Amounts of Added Sugar

The American Heart Association recommends that most women limit their sugar intake to 100 calories (25 grams), or around six teaspoons a day — men should limit their intake to 150 calories (37.5 grams), or nine teaspoons.  (Although there were no sugar recommendations for children, a national health survey found that 14 to 18 year olds consume 34 teaspoons of added sugar a day!)

Restricting yourself to the recommended limit might be difficult, since one 12-ounce can of soda has about 130 calories, or eight teaspoons of sugar. Data collected by a national nutrition survey between 2001 and 2004 suggested that, on average, Americans consume 355 calories, or more than 22 teaspoons, of sugar a day, the equivalent of two cans of soda and a chocolate bar.

What’s the big concern about eating too much sugar?

Eating a lot of added sugar is linked to the rise in obesity and is associated with increased risk for high blood pressure, high triglyceride levels, and other markers for heart disease, stroke, and inflammation. 

Because sugar just provides calories with no other nutritional value, for many people eating sugary foods and beverages can displace the more nutritious ones that are part of a healthy diet.

The Biggest Sugar Culprits

According to an article in Circulation, the biggest culprits for added dietary sugar are:

Regular soft drinks:     33%

Sugars and Candy:      16.1%

Cakes, cookies, pies:    12.9%

Fruit drinks (fruit punch and fruitades):  9.7%

Dairy desserts and milk products (ice cream, sweetened yogurt, sweetened milk:  8.6%

Other Grains:  (cinnamon toast and honey-nut waffles):  5.8%

SocialDieter Tip:

Added sugars have no nutritional value other than calories. Many of us can reduce our risk of heart disease by achieving a healthy weight.   There’s pretty strong evidence that decreasing the amount of sugar in your diets can help you achieve that.  You don’t have to eliminate sugar from your diet, just use your allotment wisely. Make trade-offs.  Use more fruit to add sweet flavor to cereals, yogurt, as dessert, and for snacks. Cut back on candy and way back on sweetened sodas, teas, and flavored waters. Help your kids learn that so much sugar is not necessary, train their palates when they’re young to enjoy less sweet food.  And, read labels, know where hidden sugar hangs out. Be aware and smart about what you buy and eat – both in and out of your home.

A Soda a Day = How Many Calories in a Year?

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How many calories . . . how much sugar?

In a recent post in his blog, Weighty Matters, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff asks an excellent question: “What happens if you drink a can of Coke daily for a year?” His startling answer:  “you’d end up slurping up 32,850 calories along with nearly 40 cups of sugar. Drink a Coke a day for a decade and that’d translate to 94 pounds worth of Coca Cola calories and 400 cups (>200lbs!) of sugar.”

Candy in small pieces

Last week, an article in the Business Section of the New York Times talked about the Hershey Company introducing three new varieties of small piece candy : Almond Joy Pieces, York Pieces and Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces, modeled after Reese’s Pieces.  A Hershey spokeswoman quoted in the article said, “Consumers needed something that was easy to snack on when on the go . . . You can just grab a couple and pop them in your mouth from a bowl or bag.”

A senior analyst at market research firm feels that expanding the Pieces line might appeal to customers who want to control their and their children’s portions. She says in the article: “If you’re trying to watch your weight, or your kid’s sugar intake, a candy bar is a big deal . . . but if you don’t want to overdo sugar in your obese kid’s lunchbox, you can still put a few Almond Joy Pieces in there.”

What do you think?

Does it bother anyone else that an analyst is talking about putting sugar in, her words, “your obese kid’s lunchbox,” or that candy companies preach portion control by making small piece candies when they know that most people will not stop at one pack, or, knowing the consequences, we continue to pour down sugar filled sodas and fight the sugary drink tax being proposed in many municipalities?