Getting Into Shape, Part II: Don't drink your calories

You want to lose weight? Fast? I'm about to drop on you one of the single biggest weight-loss hacks there is...and for free: Stop drinking your calories.

That means:
  • No sodas: They're pure sugar, even diet sodas are just chemical soup
  • No fruit juices: They're sugar water with vitamins and you can get those vitamins elsewhere
  • Nothing in your coffee or tea: No milk, no cream, no sugar, and no frappucinos
And the tough one:
  • No booze: At least for a while until you see some results
Okay, so why is this important? 

  1. Liquid calories are super easy to take in and super easy to loose track of. They count just like food calories and don't give you any nutritional value, and don't even fill you up. "But orange juice is good for you!" Sure it is. Said the Florida Orange Juice Lobby in the 1940s to sell orange juice. It's liquid sugar and extra calories you don't need. Drop it.
  2. Since the sugar in these drinks is not trapped in anything -- like a potato, or bread, or whatever -- your body has to do no work to get to it. Hence, it is more readily converted into fat.
  3. These things also (like alcohol in particular) make you feel more hungry instead of fill you up.
This was actually the first phase of my fitness / weight-loss journey back in the winter of 15/16 and I'm serious when I tell you I dropped 10 pounds without even trying. To this day, the only thing I drink with any calories in it is alcohol. I can't even stomach the taste of fruit juice any more because it's too sugary. If I'm going to ingest calories, I'm going to eat something that's going to give me protein or actual energy. 

That's the way you need to start thinking about this: What am I getting out of this? What am I getting out of the cream and sugar I'm putting into my coffee? What am I getting out of this Coke? What am I getting out of this apple juice / orange juice / whatever juice? What you're getting out of it is sugar, and excess calories your body can't use for anything but storing as fat. 

Comments

Unknown said…
WHAT IF I don't drink any alcohol at all, but put cream and sugar in my coffee... does it even out?!

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