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Don’t Drink Your Calories! |
Being shirtless in freezing weather is the hardest way possible to lose fat, let me share with you the easiest way to lose fat – Don’t drink your calories! With this one easy little change, you can lose fat. When you consume calories in liquid form, you don’t get the same fullness as when you consume solid food – so you consume more calories.
Lets take a simple example, fruit juice. What’s more American than a big glass of orange juice for breakfast? A 24oz glass of orange juice has 330 calories and I could easily polish off two glasses in 5 minutes because I love the stuff – that’s 660 calories. Do you know how many fresh oranges I would have to eat to get that many calories? Almost Ten! Neither you nor I could eat 10 oranges, our jaws would cramp from that much chewing! We might be able to eat two. This is a great illustration of why you don’t drink your calories, with the OJ its takes 660 calories to satisfy me but with the fresh fruit it takes only 140 calories. If I made that simple substitution every morning I would lose 4.5lbs of fat a month.
Lets take a look at why eating your calories is better than drinking them. First because it takes longer to eat calories than drink them. The reason this is important is that your body has a feedback mechanism that is used to tell you when you have eaten enough food but it can take 10 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain to turn off that conveyer belt to your mouth. Now I can polish off those two huge glasses of OJ in about 2 minutes when I’m thirsty and the brain cant react fast enough to shut down the drinking at the proper time. Our bodies were not designed for high calorie beverages, cavemen didn’t have OJ and coke, they had to work hard to gather their meager calories.
The second reason that eating your calories is better than drinking them is fiber. Fiber is good because it physically jams up your stomach and makes you feel full without adding any calories. Most juices have no fiber at all. Even if you get the OJ with “lots of pulp” it has only a small fraction of what you would get by eating a fresh orange. Part of what tells your brain that you have had enough to eat is the amount of bulk in your stomach, juice has no bulk so it takes a lot more.
The worst part about drinking your calories is that most people don’t think about them or think they are important – they are hidden calories. Those two spoons of sugar and those two tablespoon of half and half in your coffee just cost your 70 calories.
I get this question all the time, what about diet sodas? They have no calories so they are ok – right? Maybe, maybe not. The evidence is mixed. Its quite possible that they increase your appetite for sweets and indirectly cause you to gain weight that way.
What about milk, milk is healthy – right? Maybe, but if you are trying to lose fat then you the same mantra applies – don’t drink your calories! Its ok to put a bit of nonfat milk on your cereal but its not ok to drink it as a beverage when you are thirsty.
What about beer, wine, and mixed drinks? I think you know the answer to this by now – NO! Don’t drink your calories! Beer is probably tied with coke for the #1 reason that Americans are obese. By cutting out those two beers each night after work you can lose 2.5lbs of fat a month!
So want to lose fat the quick and easy way without a single lap around the track? DONT DRINK YOUR CALORIES, EAT THEM! Just drink plain tap water, or if you are addicted to the bubbles of sodas like I am then make your own carbonated water .