Your diet isn’t just about the food you eat; it’s also important to pay attention to how the beverages you’re drinking impact your body, especially if you’re trying to stay in shape or lose weight. As it turns out, some drinks can be just as detrimental to your health as fattening snacks can be. In fact, a few beverages that may appear to be healthy options on the surface can actually lead to weight gain over time.
To learn more about some of the most surprisingly unhealthy drinks, we spoke to health experts Lisa Richards, nutritionist and creator of The Candida Diet, and Beth Hawkes, MSN, RN-BC of Nurse Code. They told us that sports drinks and fruit juice are two major culprits. Learn why below!
Sugary Sports Drinks
If you're trying to lose weight, you're likely hitting the gym (or working out at home) on a regular basis, which means you may reach for sports drinks to replenish and rehydrate after a workout. However, Richards warns that many varieties are packed with empty calories and sugar, which "can impede your weight loss goals quickly." Yikes! In fact, she says "some forms of these sports drinks can reach up to 8 teaspoons of sugar in a bottle."
When in doubt, it's always best to hydrate with nothing but water before and after working out. "Unless you are doing intense exercise where you are losing significant amounts of electrolytes it may be more beneficial to stick with water for hydration," Richards tells us. That way, you won't have to worry about loading up on sugar and running into trouble on your weight loss journey.
Store-Bought Juice
Another fattening drink that may surprise you is store-bought fruit juice. That's because, like some sports drinks, the processed juice you'll find in the grocery store is "often packed with sugar," as Hawkes says. Sometimes it can even be worse than a typical can of soda! "For example, there are about 31 grams of sugar in a 12-ounce serving of orange juice, which is more than the 22 grams found in the same amount of cola," she warns. Say it ain't so!
For this reason, frequently drinking fruit juice can wreak havoc on your body and seriously get in the way of your weight loss progress. "When you consume such a quantity of the sweet stuff, your levels of blood glucose soar into the stratosphere," Hawkes tells us. "This tells our metabolism to slow down and thus burn fewer calories which leads us towards gaining weight instead."
If you really can't kick your fruit juice habit, it's best to press your own juice at home. Whenever possible though, choose a green juice or a nutritious smoothie. And of course, the best beverage for your body will always be a good old glass of water.
