Measure out what you add to your coffee or tea.
Do you add milk, cream, soy milk, sugar, honey, agave, etc. to your coffee or tea every morning? If so, I challenge you to measure how much of each ingredient you generally add – then add up those calories. You may find it’s not much, but you also may find you’re adding a lot more calories to your drink than you think…which is what recently happened to me:
Over the holidays, I was adding eggnog to my coffee instead of whole milk (eggnog is 180 calories per half cup; whole milk is 75). I wasn’t paying much attention to how much I poured in, and figured it was about 2 Tbsp. One day, I measured the amount I poured in my mug. It was 1/3 cup! Which means nearly everyday of December, I was adding 120 calories to my coffee without even realizing it. Over a month, this is an extra 3600 calories, which is equal to gaining a pound of extra weight. Yikes!
Simply becoming aware of habits like this, that may be “costing” you more calories than you think, can be helpful for weight loss. Within a few weeks small changes in these habits can add up to real results.
Note: even calorie-free natural or artificial sweeteners should be eaten in limited amounts. Not only can some of these be harmful to your health, but some research has shown that calorie-free sweeteners can actually make you eat more later.
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