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Liquid Candy

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Chris Shugart
Editor / V-Diet Author

Join date: Oct 2002
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Posts: 8842

Note: Below is an article I co-wrote for another Biotest site. It's a little "newbie" for T-Nation and is geared toward women looking to lose fat.

However, I see a lot people making these same dietary mistakes, including veteran male lifters. So, check it out, print it out for the females in your life who are new to all this, or just peruse it for tips.

Liquid Candy
by Chris Shugart and Sandy Joyce

Shae stared into the mirror and didn't like what she saw. "What's the problem now?" she said.

You see, Shae had been doing everything right. She had stopped eating junk food, she had increased her protein intake, and she had even joined a gym. Three times a week she lifted weights for 40 minutes and then did another 20 minutes on the treadmill.

At first, Shae had made rapid progress: she lost ten pounds, and she couldn't help but notice the extra long stares she was beginning to get when she wore shorts. (Thank you squats and lunges!) But then she stalled out. The fat loss just stopped.

"What am I doing wrong?" she thought. "I'm exercising and eating right. What's the problem?"

Shae's problem is one shared by a lot of people trying to lose fat and get healthy: she's eating right, yes, but she's drinking wrong.

Not-So-Hidden Calories

Many women wanting to lose fat only think about the calories they chew. They often forget about liquid calories: soft drinks, juices, alcoholic beverages, coffee, tea, etc. These are the hidden saboteurs in many women's diets.

If you're drinking these things regularly then you're greatly harming your fat loss efforts. And if you consume a lot of these items, even regular exercise can't "overpower" those poor choices.

Let's take a look at the worse culprits, then figure out how to get them out of our lives (and off our butts!)

Liquid Candy #1: Soft Drinks

The Problem: You've heard the stats: the average American drinks around 53 gallons of cola annually. From the late 70's to 2001, soft drink consumption increased by 153%. (Milk consumption dropped 38% during that time too, especially by kids.)

The typical non-diet pop drinker adds about 83,000 useless calories to her body every year. Since it only takes about 3500 calories to add a pound of fat, that theoretically means you could gain 24 pounds a year from soft drinks alone. (Body physiology and metabolism isn't quite that cut and dried, but you get the idea.)

Do we need to tell you that drinking sugar all day long is going to keep you fat and get you fatter? Do we need to remind you that most colas have over 10 teaspoons of sugar in every serving? Or that many bottles of cola these days contain two or three serving, not just one? Didn't think so.

The Solution: We all know that water is best, but it's hard for many women to kick the Coke habit. The first step is to switch to diet cola. Modern day artificial sweeteners, like Splenda, taste pretty darn good, so this isn't a tough step to take. Many women can drop an easy five or ten pounds just by switching to diet soft drinks.

Another option is flavored water. Most brands are calorie-free or have greatly reduced calories, and you can get them carbonated (if you miss the fizz of cola) or non-carbonated.

Crystal Light is another good option. The generic version, Great Value, sold at Super Wal-Mart, has even fewer calories.

Many times, women become addicted not to the cola itself, but to the caffeine. One method of weaning yourself off soft drinks is to take a caffeine tablet with your bottle of water. That way you won't miss the kick of soft drinks. Gradually use less caffeine (half a tablet -- buy a pill splitter at a pharmacy) and pretty soon you'll have kicked the cola habit for good.

Your waistline will thank you and so will your teeth, since the acidity of soft drinks isn't exactly healthy for your tooth enamel either.

Liquid Candy #2: Coffee Drinks

The Problem: Plain coffee is fine; the problem is what we put in it. And those fancy coffee drinks at Starbucks and other coffee shops? Diet wreckers!

We took a trip to Starbucks to find the worst offender. The most diet damaging, thigh-expanding drink offered by Starbucks is the Mint Chocolate Chip Frappuccino Blended Creme. The Venti size contains 820 calories, 25 grams of fat and 109 grams of carbohydrates! To put this in perspective, there are more calories in this drink than in any dessert item Starbucks sells. That's also over 200 more calories than in a McDonald's Big Mac!

That's an extreme example of course, but even a hundred extra calories a day from coffee flavoring and sugar can add up and hamper your fat loss.

The Solution: When you make your own coffee, stick to Splenda or Sweet 'n Low and avoid the sugar and creamer. Skim milk or Calorie Countdown milk instead of whole milk would be a great step too. Take it in steps. First replace the sugar with Splenda (or even use half sugar and half Splenda for a few weeks), then work on getting rid of the cream.

At your favorite cafe, stick to plain coffee, iced coffee, Americano, espresso, and plain teas. Ask for the sugar-free Da Vinci syrups if you want a little flavoring.

Liquid Candy #3: Alcohol

The Problem: Believe it or not, the damaging effects of alcohol go far beyond just the calories in the drink. You already know that consuming those extra calories won't help you lose fat. That's common sense. But what you might not know is that by drinking alcohol, you're storing readily available calories in your bloodstream.

How does that affect fat loss? Well, when you drink, you give your body easy "energy" to burn instead of burning your stored body fat! If that isn't enough, alcohol is also harmful to dieters because of its effect on blood sugar. Booze causes blood sugar to rise and fall rapidly, which leaves you feeling hungry.

Alcohol also impairs your judgment, which means that you'll eat and drink more than you normally would. Finally, alcohol, if you drink too much, interferes with sleep and exercise recovery. Do you really feel like going to the gym with a headache and no restful sleep the night before?

The Solution: Stop drinking! We're kidding. Sorta. If you enjoy drinking, then light beer and wine are your best bet. (By the way, mixed drinks like daiquiris are the worst when it comes to high calories.) Wine and light beer still contain calories, however, so it's in your best interest to limit them, and limit the frequency of your wild nights out with the girls.

A couple of glasses of wine can easily add 400 calories to your diet. Having just one regular beer a night adds more then 1,000 calories a week. Definitely a hindrance if fat loss is your goal!

Liquid Candy #4: Fruit Juice

The Problem: The problem is sugar! Even real fruit contains sugar, and any fat loss expert with their head on straight would tell a dieter not to consume too much fruit, especially by itself. If you must have a little fruit when dieting, eat it with a protein source.

Fruit juice, even pure 100% fruit juice, is very harmful to dieters, not just because of the calories, but because of the effect on blood sugar. Sugar causes a rapid rise in blood sugar, and you know the old cliche: "What goes up, must come down." And when blood sugar comes down, that means disaster for dieters. Have you ever craved sweets really bad or felt out of control when eating? Chances are that has to do with blood sugar fluctuations.

We're not going to try to convince you that fruit and fruit juice don't contain any nutrients. We all know they do. But there are better ways to get the same nutrients - ways that are supportive to fat loss!

The Solution: We think most people who drink fruit juices do so because they're taught that juices are good for them. It's time to re-think that. While a little whole fruit (with protein) may be fine, preferably after you reach your goals, you should limit fruit intake when dieting and cut juice out altogether.

Seriously, this stuff does nothing for you but fill your body with simple sugar and fast acting carbohydrates. If you want something sweet and fruity but supportive of your fat loss goals, try Crystal Light Sunrise instead of OJ.

Wrap-Up

What's worse, a milkshake or a candy bar? Well, a large McDonalds's Triple Thick shake has over 1000 calories. That's more calories than eating four Hershey bars! Yep, liquid calories count... big time. Except for healthy protein shakes, avoid drinking your calories. Chew them!