This post has been updated since its initial publish date to include more expert insight.
Your morning cup of coffee can provide innumerable health benefits (in addition to helping you face the day!). Many of those are weight loss benefits; health experts agree that drinking coffee in the morning can aid digestion, among other things. “It can be beneficial by providing the body with antioxidants, acting as a diuretic, and improving bowel movements in those with digestive issues,” Trista Best, a registered dietitian at Balance One explains.
But, just like anything you eat and drink, adding certain ingredients to your coffee can undermine its benefits. We spoke with Best, Lisa Richards, a registered nutritionist and author of The Candida Diet, and Dana Ellis Hunnes, a registered dietitian at UCLA medical center, about the coffee mistakes you should steer clear of for weight loss. When preparing that cup of joe, they say to avoid adding refined sugar, sweetened syrup, and flavored creamer. Find out more below!
READ MORE: Doctors Agree: Why People Who Drink This In The Morning Struggle To Lose Weight
1. Refined Sugar
This one seems obvious, but adding sugar to sweeten the taste of your morning coffee can slow down your weight loss efforts, Best advises, "This is because sugar-laden coffee can increase weight gain and glucose even more by being consumed first thing in the day."
How bad is it? "Morning coffee that is filled with sugar and sweetened creamers will set the tone for cravings and food preferences for the rest of the day," she warns. "The rise in glucose first thing in the morning causes an insulin response and an inevitable crash. This cycle will lead to overeating, mostly refined carbs and sugar, irritability, and fatigue." Yikes! All of which contribute to high glucose and weight gain.
2. Sweetened Syrups
Hunnes also stresses that adding processed flavored syrup to your coffee negates the nutritional value of plain, black coffee. "When you go to your favorite coffee shop, many of the syrups they are adding contain a lot of sugar, and that can add many extra calories," she notes. Hunnes points out that you might not even realize how many extra calories a coffee drink can have. "A black coffee on its own is zero calories," she notes, but the "syrups and creams that are used, and any whipped toppings can make this zero-calorie beverage now closer to 300 or 400 calories," she adds. "That's practically a meal," she says. Yikes!
3. Sweetened Creamers
Lastly, there's another ingredient you're going to want to steer clear of: all those tasty creamers. As much as we hate to say it, creamers can be seriously detrimental to your overall health and weight loss plans. "While it is common, adding creamer is also a way calorie, sugar, and fat sneak into our diet and it adds up quickly," Richards says. Say it ain't so!
But, Best warns that you shouldn't think that plant-based creamers are the way to go, either. Best says that these can be even worse than their dairy counterparts. "Oftentimes plant-based creamers can be just as high, if not higher, in calories than regular dairy creamers," she says. "The added sugars in these creamers should also be a consideration when making your coffee. An unnecessary amount of calories, fat, and added sugar are found in most coffee creamers regardless of their basis."
The Bottom Line
Overall, it's important to be mindful of the ingredients you add to your cup of joe. While a little bit of cream, syrups, or sugar every now and then may not be a problem, adding large amounts of sugary ingredients to your coffee can have a myriad of negative impacts on your health and weight loss plans. So, it's best to just sip on black coffee if you want to lose weight. Your body will thank you!
