Some coffee drinks have more than 600 calories! If you drink a coffee that has that many calories, you could very well be sabotaging your dieting efforts just by drinking your must-have morning beverage. Here’s a crash course on how to order a diet coffee drink. Howcast has put together this video detailing the steps on how to do it. I am going to summarize them for you here:
- Step 1: Get the nutrition information from the coffee shop that you visit. Howcast recommends that you visit the website of that coffee shop. You can also ask the barista if they have a pamphlet that they can give you so you can keep it at home. If you frequent that coffee shop, having the nutrition information of the beverages you drink is a really good idea. By studying the content of what you are drinking, you will learn exactly what role a particular beverage is playing in your diet (i.e., whether it is helpful, harmful, or neither).
- Step 2: Order plain black coffee or an Americano (diluted espresso) because once you start adding fancy ingredients, the calorie count of that beverage increases. Howcast tells you to add your own milk so that you can control the type and amounts. If you are in a restaurant, I suppose you can order a side glass of milk so you can do this. But if you are standing in line at a coffee shop or in the drive-thru, this advice probably won’t work unless you carry your own milk with you. It seems to me that the more reasonable advice is what they share in step 3.
- Step 3: For a healthy coffee, order fat-free drinks. While I do not drink coffee, I am a big fan of hot chocolate. When I have ordered hot chocolate from Starbucks, I ask them to make it with skim milk. If going from whole milk to skim milk seems like too much of a drastic change, then try asking for 2-percent milk instead.
- Step 4: Use sugar substitutes, sugar-free syrup, and avoid the specialty toppings like whipped cream. A sugar substitute is just an artificial sweetener that has fewer calories than sugar. But be careful. Artificial sweeteners are much sweeter than sugar. Aetna’s dental website notes that Splenda is 600 times sweeter than sugar If you want to use a sugar substitute, put a smaller amount than you would if you were using sugar. While Howcast tells you to ask for sugar-free syrup, it is important to note that a product can be labeled as sugar-free and still contain artificial sweeteners in it (so calorie counts and the effect on your blood sugar still need to be considered).
- Steps 5 and 6 can be covered in one step: If you are ordering more of a dessert-type of a drink, ask for the smallest size. To treat a dessert accordingly (as Howcast puts it), your intake of desserts should be a limited, not frequent, occurrence.
If you simply must co-exist with coffee, then start exploring some ways that you can reduce the calorie counts of what you drink. See if you can implement some of the advice that Howcast gives in this video. They do share some great coffee tips, and following them can certainly lead to an enjoyable low-calorie drink.
