Think Before You Drink
Kicking your liquid-sugar habit may be the easiest way to lose your gut



America has a serious drinking problem. But it's not the dirty martinis and shots of Patron that we're hooked on. It's the soft stuff — regular soda, juice, and yes, the beloved grande mocha — that fuels our collective addiction.

And perhaps more than anything else we swallow, these drinks are making us fat. "Our evolution over hundreds of thousands of years didn't prepare us to process liquid calories," says Barry Popkin, Ph.D., a distinguished professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina. After all, he says, we drank only water for most of human history. For reference, you can figure that's a duration of, say, 200,000 years. "High-sugar drinks didn't even exist until 150 years ago, and they weren't consumed in significant amounts until the past 50 years. This is just a blip on our evolutionary timeline," says Popkin.

The problem, it seems, is that beverages don't make us feel full. Popkin hypothesizes that we developed this way so that satisfying our thirst with water wouldn't also blunt our hunger for food. Unfortunately, our bodies weren't reprogrammed for the 21st century, a time when more than 20 percent of our total calorie intake comes from beverages.

Perhaps all of this explains why our appetite for sugary drinks is seemingly insatiable: The drinks taste great but aren't filling.

When Purdue University researchers had people consume 450 calories a day from either jelly beans or soft drinks for 4 weeks, the candy eaters consumed no more total calories than usual. The soda swiggers, however, downed 17 percent more calories each day. So on a 2,500-calorie diet, for example, the pop drinkers would have taken in an extra 425 daily calories. "People simply don't reduce their food intake when they drink their calories from soda and other beverages," says Popkin. Not surprisingly, the group that consumed the liquid calories gained weight during the study.

Now consider that the average person consumes 459 calories, most of which come from sugar, in the beverages he or she drinks each day. So by cutting back or even eliminating the kinds of drinks that contribute to those empty calories, you'll instantly kickstart weight loss. Where to begin? Start by slashing your consumption of regular soda, and focus on chugging more H2O. (Reminder: Your muscles are almost 80 percent water, so don't be stingy with it.) Then use this guide to fill out the rest of your drink list
Drink Often:

Tea

After water, tea is the world's most popular beverage. But in the United States, regular soda rules. That's a shame, because not only does tea contain antioxidants that may help protect against heart disease and fight cancer, it's also calorie-free — that is, as long as you opt for the unsweetened kind. Case in point: A bottle of Snapple original-flavor green tea contains 33 grams of added sugar — the equivalent of 14 sugar cubes. So check labels: You want beverages that provide little or no sugar. To make your own comparisons, remember that every 4 grams of the sweet stuff is the same as eating one sugar packet or sugar cube.

But what if the product label doesn't list nutrition information? That's good news, since it's an indicator that the calorie content is negligible. For instance, you typically won't find a nutrition label on tea bags, because they contain less than 1 gram of carbohydrates per serving, and thus, virtually no calories.

While green, black, and oolong bag teas are all great choices, there are many other types of tea that come in a variety of different flavors. Check out these four, but experiment with as many as you can. You'll no doubt find several you enjoy, and you won't miss the sugar at all.

Mighty Leaf Bombay Chai: Contains caffeine and bold flavors, making it ideal for kickstarting your day.

Adagio Roobios: This South African herbal tea is caffeine-free, tastes naturally and subtly sweet, and comes in 13 flavors. For similar alternatives, try honeybush and chamomile teas.

Stash Peppermint: A cup or two of this refreshing herbal tea is a great finish to any meal.

Tazo Sweet Cinnamon Spice: It's spicy, but not overwhelmingly so, with a touch of sweetness. Makes for a soothing pre-slumber drink.

Coffee

Like tea, unsweetened coffee is filled with healthful compounds and almost no calories. But when was the last time you drank unsweetened coffee?

With the advent of Starbucks and similar establishments, calories from coffee are skyrocketing. In fact, gourmet-coffee drinkers consume, on average, 206 more calories a day than people who sip regular joe. But chances are, you may not be ready to kick your Starbucks habit entirely. So we scoured its menu for items that contain less than 20 calories. Here's what we found, all of which are good options:

Caffé Americano: A grande (16 ounces) has just 15 calories.

Espresso: One ounce — Starbucks' single-shot serving size — contains 5 calories.

Coffee of the week: A grande has 5 calories.

Tazo Tea: No, it's not coffee, but besides water, it's the only other drink on Starbucks' menu that has 0 calories. Just make sure you order the plain version — not the syrup-spiked, juice-infused, or latte kinds, all of which contain added sugar and calories.

Don't Over-Do It:

Milk

Like soda, milk doesn't make you feel full, says Popkin. However, other researchers disagree. And because milk contains bone-strengthening calcium and muscle-building protein, it's a worthy beverage to work into your daily calorie allotment. (Of course, you can also derive the same nutrients from solid dairy foods, such as cheese and yogurt.)

Still, some studies show that milk drinkers are leaner than those who skip the beverage — so unless you're downing it by the gallon, it's not likely to be the reason for your love handles. If you're trying to manage your weight, make it a policy to cap your intake at two glasses a day. Just make sure you opt for the unsweetened kind — flavored milk is loaded with added sugar. Interestingly, in an analysis of vending-machine sales in schools, flavored milk, such as chocolate and strawberry, outsold the regular kind nine to one. That just goes to show that our taste for sweet drinks isn't limited to sodas, coffee, and tea — and it probably starts at a young age.

Alcohol

The old saying, "You can get too much of a good thing," is right on the money. Moderate alcohol consumption — one to two drinks a day — has been shown to reduce your risk of heart disease. The downside, of course, is that alcohol contains liquid calories and may even boost your appetite. Plus, unlike fat, carbohydrates, and protein, the calories in alcohol can't be stored in your body — so they have to be used immediately. As a result, your body stops burning fat until the alcohol is processed. This takes about an hour for every drink. So think about that at the next happy hour.

Juice

Here's the myth we've been sold for years: All juice is healthful because it comes from fruit. This has led many people to take a more-is-better approach to these beverages — . The trouble is, many juices contain not only the natural sugar from the fruit, but also copious amounts of added sugars, so that they aren't as tart. Cranberry juice, in fact, is too sour to drink when it hasn't been sweetened.

Keep in mind, though, that a medium orange contains just 62 calories and 12 grams of sugar, and it has 3 grams of belly-filling fiber. An 8-ounce glass of Minute Maid OJ has 110 calories, 24 grams of sugar, and no fiber. So the best approach is to eat the whole fruit, which also ensures that you get all the beneficial nutrients. (The skin of an apple is loaded with antioxidants.) And if you want juice, take it in smaller doses — 2 to 3 ounces is a good rule of thumb. Another option: Go ahead and have the juice, but make sure you're monitoring your total calorie intake.

Diet Soda

Because diet drinks, such as diet sodas and Crystal Light, are artificially sweetened, they typically contain 5 calories max per serving. So they won't directly lead to weight gain. But guzzling these beverages all day long does lead to one potential problem: You drink less of everything else. So having one or two diet sodas a day is fine, but if you're downing five or six 12-ounce bottles, that means you're limiting your intake of healthful beverages, such as tea.

Also, emerging research suggests that consuming sugary-tasting beverages — even if they're artificially sweetened — may lead to a high preference for sweetness overall. And that might best explain why nobody takes their coffee black anymore.