Diet Tips: Be Careful with What You Drink to Avoid Weight Gain
When you are on a diet, in addition to controlling the food you eat, beverages are also an important part. Many drinks may look healthy, but they are actually high-calorie foods that can cause weight gain, making you unknowingly consume a lot of calories and hindering your weight loss plan. Below, we will tell you which drinks you can have more of and which ones you should try to avoid.
Tea
Sugar-free tea is the second most popular beverage in the world after water, and it is one of the few drinks you can indulge in without restriction. The reason you can drink it freely is that, whether it's cold or hot, it contains zero calories. Research has also found that the catechins in green tea can boost your metabolism, which means you can burn more calories even with the same amount of exercise.
However, if you add sugar to this otherwise healthy drink, it is no longer a beverage you can drink without restriction. Whenever possible, try to choose sugar-free options. If you are buying bottled drinks, it's best to check the label carefully. A bottle or carton of drink should ideally contain no more than 4 grams of sugar.
If you are making your own tea drink, you can try the Iced Cucumber Green Tea recommended by Dr. Maggie Mo of the American Tea Association:
1. First, boil one liter of water and let it cool for 10 minutes. Then add 8-10 green tea bags. This will make the flavor stronger without destroying the healthy components of the tea and making it too bitter.
2. Steep the tea bags in the water for 1 minute, then remove them.
3. Select a cucumber, peel it, and cut it into pieces. Reserve 8-10 slices to garnish the rim of the glass.
4. Take a teaspoon-sized piece of fresh ginger, peel it, and chop it.
5. Then, divide the chopped cucumber and ginger evenly among 4 glasses filled with ice.
6. Finally, add 240 ml of tea to each glass and place a cucumber slice on the rim.
Coffee
Like tea, unsweetened coffee contains some beneficial health components and has almost no calories.
If you are a fan of sugary coffee, switching to unsweetened coffee can help you reduce your daily calorie intake by an average of 206 calories.
If you are not yet ready to change your coffee taste, you can try an Americano (espresso with water) or coffee with low-fat or skim milk.
If you can't give up cream and sugar, try to reduce the amount and choose low-fat or skim cream.
Milk
Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville found that drinking three glasses of low-fat milk daily for six months can help reduce body weight by 10% or more.
Dr. Michael Zemel, director of the university's Nutrition Institute, says that dairy products contain calcium and the amino acid leucine, which together promote fat burning.
A study on overweight women at Northern Illinois University found that soy milk, like skim milk, can also promote fat loss. Therefore, it's best to choose skim or low-fat milk, or light soy milk, as they are great helpers for weight loss.
However, if you switch to full-fat, concentrated, or sugary soy milk, it can actually cause you to gain weight.
Alcohol
Moments of joyful drinking with friends can bring you a lot of happiness.
However, it is very detrimental to weight loss. Drinking small amounts of alcohol daily, especially red wine, can prevent heart disease. However, alcohol is very high in calories, with a small glass containing a large amount of calories. What's worse, alcohol can stimulate your appetite. Moreover, unlike the calories from fat, carbohydrates, and protein in food, the calories from alcohol are not stored in the body; they are used up immediately.
As a result, your body stops burning fat until all the calories from the alcohol are completely burned. This means that it takes about an hour to burn off the calories from a small glass of wine.
A glass of most wines contains 100-120 calories, but you can reduce this by adding some soda water or ice. If your stomach can't tolerate such mixed drinks, you can choose a 180 ml Bloody Mary, which contains about 76 calories. This is barely acceptable. However, for truly successful weight loss, it's best to avoid alcohol altogether.
Low-Calorie Sodas
We see many zero-calorie sodas on the market these days. While these drinks may not directly cause you to gain weight, researchers at Purdue University in the US have found that beverages with artificial sweeteners can weaken the brain's control over calorie intake. Frequently drinking these low-calorie sodas can make you crave sweets more.
Additionally, if you often choose sodas, you will naturally drink less of healthy beverages like tea. If you really can't quit, you can pair your soda with zero-calorie tea. Alternatively, you can make your own healthy sodas at home using a carbonation machine to add carbon dioxide directly to your healthy drinks.
Juice
Juice is made from fruit, so it must be healthy, right? Actually, that's not entirely true.
Many fruit juices have extra sugar added. From a health or weight loss perspective, it's better to eat fruit directly and avoid juice as much as possible. A medium-sized orange has at most 59 calories, 12 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of fiber that can make you feel full.
In contrast, a 240 ml bottle of orange juice contains at least 110 calories, twice the sugar of the fruit, and no fiber.
Lisa Jones, an adjunct professor of nutrition at La Salle University in Philadelphia, says that when drinking juice, you can add more water to reduce the calories. In your favorite juice drink, for example, in 240 ml of juice, add about a liter of water. This way you can enjoy the same flavor while consuming fewer calories.