Quench Your Thirst With Fewer Calories
Reviewed by Staff of Diabetes Digest

Have you ever added up the calories you get from the liquids you drink? You might be surprised to learn how many calories you take in from juice, milk, regular soda, sweetened ice tea and coffee—not to mention alcoholic beverages. Whether the calories are liquid or solid, your body uses them for energy in exactly the same way.

When you consume an excess of calories—liquid or solid—they add weight to your waist, hips and other trouble spots. Excess carbohydrates from beverages, typically in the form of sugars, also can increase your blood glucose level if you have diabetes and do not produce enough insulin to cover those carbohydrates. So, perhaps it is time to take a careful look at the beverages you drink to see if making a few small changes could help you reduce your calorie count and improve your health.

MAKE A HEALTHY CHANGE

The good news is that there are many new healthy beverage options, such as calorie-free flavored waters, fat-free milk and calcium fortified juices. Selecting healthier beverages to quench your thirst is one of the easiest changes you can make on the road to a healthier you. They can result in huge calorie savings and may also help lower your blood glucose and improve your triglyceride count.

AN ARRAY OF BEVERAGE OPTIONS

Today, most regularly sweetened beverages—from soda to sweetened ice tea, and even healthy-sounding fruit drinks—are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Calorie for calorie, it is the same as sugar. And like sugar, these calories offer no nutrition. It is best for many reasons not to waste your calories on regularly sweetened beverages. Choose beverages sweetened with no-calorie sweeteners or drink water, mineral water, club soda, seltzer, tea or coffee. Fruit juice consisting of 100 percent juice gets its sweetness from natural fruit sugars. These sugars still raise blood glucose, but 100 percent fruit juice also provides a variety of vitamins and minerals. When it is available, buy calcium fortified juice. An 8-ounce glass provides about one-third of the adult daily calcium requirement. That’s great because many Americans do not get enough calcium. When it comes to milk, the choice is clear—go for fat-free. If you just can’t handle fat-free, then opt for the next best choice, which is 1 percent. Calcium-fortified, fat-free milk is available in many areas. It provides about 500 milligrams of calcium per 8 ounces, or 50 percent of an adult’s daily needs.

CHOOSE TO LOSE

Today, you have a wide array of no- and low-calorie and low-carbohydrate beverages from which to choose. For starters, you can select from a range of diet sodas. These have no calories compared with 250 calories for each 20-ounce bottle of regular soda. Diet sodas are sweetened with the following no-calorie sweeteners: aspartame, acesulfame-K, saccharin or sucralose. Most diet sodas are sweetened with a blend of saccharin and aspartame. The relatively recent availability of sucralose (brand name Splenda®) has given rise to several new types of beverages, such as Very Fine Fruit2O® (a non-carbonated flavored water), V8 Diet Splash® (a low-calorie fruit drink) and Ocean Spray Light® (a cranberry drink with one-third the calories of its regular counterpart). These all quench your thirst with fewer calories and fewer carbohydrates.

Opt for lower-calorie beverages: Let the numbers convince you High-calorie, high-carbohydrate beverages

Lower-calorie, lower-carbohydrate beverages Beverage Calories Carbohydrates (g)

 *Sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup + Sweetened with one or two no-calorie sweeteners