When you start talking about being healthier, everyone starts giving you advice on the foods to stay away from. But what about the beverages you drink? They are often forgotten, yet it is entirely possible to drink hundreds of calories a day without realizing it or stopping yourself. Here are some tips about your favorite beverages to make sure that your good nutrition is complete.
1. Drink a lot of water. Water is the best beverage you can drink at any time. Water is natural, free of calories, and has zero fat in it. Water is naturally inside of your body, in fact it is in every cell of your body. In fact, water makes up about 60-70% of your entire body. So it is critically important that you replenish your water stores and stay hydrated. If you are ever out and unsure what to order as your beverage, water will never let you down. Order it with a twist of lemon, if you feel you need flavor.
2. Beware of juice. Juice is often touted as the natural way to ingest fruits, but you have got to be really careful about how much juice you drink. You must read labels: did you know that many juices are not even 30% actual juice? One of the ingredients that make up many juices is high fructose corn syrup, which makes the juice sweeter. That means you are drinking lots of sugar and lots of calories that you probably don’t need.
3. Be strict with soft drinks. You can have a soft drink every now and then, but so many people have no idea how many calories and how much sugar just one soft drink can pack into your body. Read the labels and you will be shocked. Not only that, but with soft drinks, there are a lot of chemical ingredients. Those ingredients are not found naturally in nature!
4. Drink alcohol sparingly. Alcohol can be a huge way for some people to rack up calories with no nutritional value. And when you are drunk, you exercise much less control over how much more unhealthy food and beverages you are ingesting.
5. Drink coffee in a healthy way. Many people just can’t do without their morning cup of coffee, and if that’s you, it’s alright to have coffee as long as you do it in a healthy way. Instead of adding five or six sugars, put in one or two. Even better, use an artificial sweetener. Another idea is to use non-dairy creamer instead of full fat milk, half-and-half, and cream. The creamer may eliminate the need for sugar in your coffee altogether, which would be healthier.
As you can see, many beverages are okay to ingest if you drink them infrequently. The most important thing is to be aware of what exactly you are putting into your body. Remember the information presented in this article, and you will be able to live nutritiously by remembering the beverages as well as the food.