4 Ways to Lose Weight by Changing Your Beverage Habits

The most important and only fluid we need to drink to keep us alive is water. Anything else we drink is made up of habit, addiction or to provide the body with some type of satisfaction (sugar, carbonated drinks etc). Drinks other than water are a hidden source of calories and sugar. As shown in the picture below, you can very easily drink your daily energy requirement in sweet sugary and milky drinks. The easiest way to cut calories, lose weight and improve your health is to watch your fluid intake.

Changing your beverage habits
(photo: Tarable1)


Her are some weight loss tips – in the first week I start with one small goal: Change your drinking habits.
1. Replace all sugary drinks with sugar-free alternatives
2. Reduce all your normal drinks by half (i.e. if you have two full-cream lattes each day, reduce it to one; if you have four glasses of wine during the week only have two)
3. Replace your fruit juice with water
4. Reduce the sugar you add to drinks by half (ie. If you have one teaspoon of sugar with your tea, reduce down to half a teaspoon or none if you can)
Try the above for one week and you will see the results.

Making healthier drink choices
Here are my recommendations for how to make healthier choices when choosing your drinks:

• DRINK WATER – it has zero calories and is essential for the health and function of your body
• Choose plain tea or black coffee
• If you drink Milo / Ovaltine / Horlicks: Mix it with hot water instead of milk
• Use low fat milk in all of your drinks
• Don’t add sugar to drinks
• Reduce the fruit juice in your diet – or make them 50/50 (i.e.: half juice, half water)
• Choose sugar-free sodas or soft drinks
• Have evaporated milk instead of condensed milk
• Reduce the amount of alcohol you consume (try to enforce dry days during the week)

By Natalie Black, an accredited Exercise Physiologist who blogs at The Health Guru. Via HealthMatters.sg, a Singapore Health and Fitness blog that aims to help you lose weight, keep fit, and live healthy. Click here to get our free guide “Eat Your Way to Health – Secrets of a Healthy Diet”.

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