When it comes to beverages, I am a big fan of water. When I’m thirsty I always reach for water. Easily 90 percent of the fluids I drink are water. I have coffee in the morning (with milk, no sweetener), sometimes tea in the afternoon (plain), and most evenings I’ll have a beer or a glass of wine or sometimes a cocktail (martini or Scotch…I gave up sugary cocktails years ago).
I advocate strongly against drinking calories. When we’re thirsty, we need fluids. When we’re hungry, we need calories. Liquid calories don’t satisfy hunger like calories from food would, so what’s the point? I was just reading a discussion about how to increase calories in a college athlete who needed to gain weight. He was already eating a huge amount of food but still needed more calories, and one of the top bits of advice was to have him drink juice!
I actually can’t remember the last time I had juice. Or soda. I do have fruit smoothies, but those are not exactly liquid, and they retain all of the fiber of the fruit, so they do satisfy hunger (I also use a mix of almond milk and Greek yogurt for the “liquid” portion, and usually add some whey protein to add to the satiety factor).
If you find yourself struggling with giving up sugary beverages, especially if you just don’t like drinking water (some people just don’t), you might find some helpful tidbits in my latest “On Nutrition” column in yesterday’s Seattle Times. You can link to it from the Times health page (at the time I was writing this post, the direct link wasn’t up).
Have a good Monday!
