This weeks post has been delayed, just a few days, as we took a family holiday in sunny Queensland and all those intentions of tweeting, blogging and online connecting flew away with the seagulls. It was amazing to spend hours outside, in the surf, sand and sun. I highly recommend a techno free break. And friends, if you know someone out there that is a little too connected, you can always stage a takeover and relieve them of their blogging duties for a week or so. Now there’s a radical thought. One thing we did do more of in the heat, was drink. So it was time to look at one of my all time favourite topics, liquid kilojoules, and how your daily drinks could be sabotaging your weight loss efforts.
Think your drinks
With red wine touted for antioxidants and juice bars popping up on every city corner, it’s easy to believe you really should drink to your health. There’s been such a dramatic rise in the number of functional beverages in recent years. We now take probiotic drinks for inner health, cranberry juice to “detox”, pomegranate juice for heart health and are in full swing with exotic fruit extracts like Amazonian acai or Himalayan goji berries.
One of the biggest frustrations echoed by many people is feeling like they’re doing everything right and still the final kilos won’t shift. When you’ve worked so hard to make gym sessions routine, have curbed the cake and focused on healthy, wholesome foods, it often feels like there’s nowhere left to go. Sound familiar? Chances are you may have fallen into the common trap and forgotten to factor in the impact of liquid kilojoules. Drinking is such a quick an automatic part of life that it’s easy to suffer kilojoule amnesia. Without realising it you can easily tally up the equivalent of a whole extra meal or more in one day’s beverages.
A day in the life…
Take a hypothetical day. You’re running late after your morning walk, so instead of cereal and milk you grab a banana smoothie on the way to work. With full cream milk, honey and vanilla, frozen yogurt you’re probably amazed to hear that you’ve just clocked up a whopping 1800 kilojoules. You grab a grande latte (hold the cream & syrup of course) to get you through the morning (1000kilojoules). Instead of tap water you sip from a bottle of flavoured, sports water during the day as you’re convinced you need the vitamin and mineral boost (330kilojoules), adding a carrot & orange juice at lunch (700kilojoules). Add a small glass of wine at dinner (just one as you’re being good) and there’s another 450kilojoules. Daily tally? Around 4,300kilojoules (over 1000 calories).
Deciphering drinks
When you’re watching your weight you really want to go no-joule or low-joule with beverages so that you can fill up on an adequate volume of food to feel satisfied, while staying under your daily kilojoule / calorie target for weight loss. The maths is simple. Drink more kilojoule laden beverages and you’ll have less allowance for food.
Great choices if you’re watching your weight include soda / seltzer and sparkling mineral waters, diet soft drinks / sodas and tonic water and herbal teas. It’s important to understand sports drinks are designed for endurance events over an hour, regular soft drinks are definitely classed as treat foods and flavoured mineral waters and iced teas are usually soft drinks or sodas in disguise. You may like to read our nutrition review of coconut water.
Juice sleuth
Being a concentrated source of fruit and vegetables also means that juices are generally a concentrated source of natural sugars and kilojoules. For weight loss success and to get important fibre, go for two serves of whole fruit instead of juice. When you drink juice, treat it as part of your daily food intake, such as an afternoon snack, rather than a beverage to have with a meal. Look for juices with no added sugar or kilojoule reduced version of favourites and stick to a small 250mL glass.
Alcohol trap
Overall drinking small amounts (1-2 glasses of wine) most days appears to offer heart and other health benefits for those people who choose to drink. But if you’re watching your weight you’ll need to bump up those alcohol free days as one medium sized glass of red wine (185mL) has more than 500kilojoules alone. Keep the kilojoules down by going for light beer and the new range of alcohol reduced wines. Have a party plan in place when you’re socialising by keeping track of your drinks, alternate wine with water or diet soft-drink spacers or spritz your white wine with soda.
Caffeine caution
Hollywood celebrities with their giant takeaway coffee cups make it look like you really can swig down those grande lattes all day and stay in great shape. Caffeine is a recognised drug, stimulant and performance aid and moderate quantities, around 3 cups of coffee a day (or the equivalent of 250-300mg caffeine per day), can be an effective way to maintain alertness. With weight loss, the cuppa key is how you take your brew. Unless you like yours black, added full cream milk and sugar can really pile on the kilojoules. So go skim milk all the way; switch from grande to regular sizes; and choose a brew with less milk. Plus cut out sugar or use a low calorie sweetener instead. I’m hoping someone can leave me tips for ordering my cuppa Joe in NY…which is where I’ll be in less than a weeks time.
So how about you? Have you curbed your liquid kilojoules? What are your tips for drinks and ways to jazz up plain water?
