If you’re trying to lose weight, you likely think a lot about the food you’re putting into your body. Maybe you’ve made the effort to scrap processed snacks, lean towards healthy homemade meals, and cut the frozen dinners out of your diet. However, it’s also important to consider the beverages you drink every day. As it turns out, certain sugary varieties can be some of the worst culprits when it comes to weight gain.
To learn more about the worst drinks out there that could be holding you back from your weight loss goals, we spoke to health experts Tania Long, nutritionist for Meal Fan, and Beth Hawkes, MSN, RN-BC of Nurse Code. They told us sugary, processed fruit juices are some of the worst things you can put into your body, especially if you want to avoid belly fat. Read on to learn why!
Sugary Fruit Juice And Weight Gain
You may think that all fruit juice is healthy—after all, it contains fruit, which is a great part of any diet. However, health experts warn that the added sugar in most store-bought juices negates practically any of the benefits. In fact, Hawkes says if you're going to be reaching for a bottle of processed apple juice, it's not much better than a can of Coke. In some cases, it's even worse. "Fruit juices are often packed with sugar," she says. "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." Yikes!
Long agrees, noting that "while it may seem like you're making a good choice by selecting fruit juice over soda, the sugar level in fruit juice might be much higher than the sugar content of soda." Who knew something that seems so healthy could be so bad for you?!
So, how come fruit juice is so bad for you if fruit is so nutritious? In addition to all the added sugar we've already discussed, Long explains that juice typically lacks all the fiber you'd normally get when eating a piece of fruit, which makes it difficult for your body to absorb all the sugar at hand. This often causes blood sugar spikes. "When you consume such a quantity of the sweet stuff, your levels of blood glucose soar into the stratosphere," Hawkes explains. "This tells our metabolism to slow down and thus burn fewer calories which leads us towards gaining weight instead."
In addition to a slowed metabolism, those blood sugar spikes eventually end in a crash, which will make you crave even more sugar later in the day. To make matters worse, the lack of fiber means you won't stay satiated for very long. When both of these factors join forces, you're more likely to overeat and indulge in more unhealthy, sugary snacks, which we all know can lead to unwanted weight gain. Say it ain't so!
If you really don't want to kick your juice habit, you have a few options. Of course, your best bet is always to make homemade green juice right in your own kitchen so that you know exactly what you're putting into your body. But if you're not up to the challenge, just be sure that, like with everything else, you check the ingredients of beverages and choose the most nutritious options with the lowest amounts of sugar and artificial sweetener. When in doubt, if you're really craving fruit, just eat the real thing—there's nothing like it!
