Usually, when we want to bring good nutrition focus our attention on solid foods we eat, and often we overlook the drinks. Many times they contain too many calories and few nutrients, preventing your weight is healthy. Change or reduce the consumption of certain drinks can help you lose or maintain a healthy weight.
Besides soft drinks (Mexico is the second largest consumer in the world), every day we take juices, milk, yogurts, smoothies, wine, beer, flavored waters … without thinking that their calorie count. We have seen that look on drinks is as important as solid foods and weight loss is greater if you reduce sweetened beverage consumption.
In the same manner that food, beverages can be high or low in nutrients and high or low in sugars. The ideal combination is high in nutrients, low in sugars. There are many drinks high in sugar and low in nutrients, i.e. they are empty calories (empty calories). If it is packaged beverages can read the label. The most important detail to take care in drinks is sugar. Reading the quantity in grams can imagine the amount in teaspoons. 5 grams of sugar corresponding to 1 tsp. If a beverage contains 35 grams of sugar, up to 7 teaspoons … this way it is easier to visualize the amounts. The ingredient list is very useful to see the sugar content in products such as juices, yogurts and drinks. If we see sugar listed on the 1st or 2nd place in the list, then you have a lot of sugar! It’s the main ingredient! We find that sugar or its “equivalent” (prepared fruit, fruit concentrate, fructose, corn syrup, malt, dextrose, sucrose, juice concentrates, glucose, molasses, honey) appear after the first 3 ingredients.
Let us therefore do contain some of the most common drinks to decide the frequency and quantity that we will:
Plain water. The best option to keep hydrated is plain water. Our body has between 60 and 70% water. We need water to regulate body temperature and to transport oxygen and nutrients to our cells, get rid of harmful waste and protects our joints and organs. If not used, we can start with small amounts to achieve drink between 1 and 2 liters of plain water.
Packaged Juices: contain mostly sugar. Usually, though said packaged juices contain natural fruit industry uses highly diluted amounts of fruit, especially taste looking rather an acceptable amount of fruit to be good sources of vitamins and fiber. Wanting to get a good flavor, I added high amounts of sugar. Besides water-soluble vitamins (especially vitamin C) are lost with the passage of time, light and oxygen, so it will always be a better choice to make fresh juices from fruits and vegetables. In the case of diet drinks, not contain sugar, and will be good strategy for reducing calories, but the amount of vitamins and minerals will always be lower compared with the fresh and natural versions.
Natural juices: An important detail is that if we drink juice, considering we do that to have a glass of juice will need several servings of fruit, sugar exceeding the amount recommended. We do not recommend more than 1 glass of juice. If we take more than 1 glass juice adding water can do simple (and not sugar) to not increase calories. Para improve quality, avoid strain it to get your fiber. The combination of fruit juices vegetables are excellent because they contain fewer calories than pure fruit. A good way to do it is blender instead of exhaust as it is including all the pulp and fiber. And finally, the vegetable juices are an excellent choice to hydrate, including fiber, vitamins and minerals, these juices are lower in calories.
Water taste: Many families usually drink flavored water. We recommend adding sugar minimal, ie, no more than 1 tablespoon per cup of water and natural fruit if we can omit the sugar, letting the fruit sugars naturally sweeten.
Soft drinks: They contain sugar (sucrose), carbon dioxide and phosphoric acid decalcified teeth and bones. Not contain any important nutrient for the body. You should avoid these drinks whenever possible. The light versions did not provide calories they do not contain sugar, but the other ingredients that are not so healthy.
Atoles and chocolates: These traditional drinks can be made from water or milk. If made with milk, contain carbohydrates, protein and calcium, but you should prefer skim milk to whole milk, because the latter contains saturated fat. It is recommended not to add sugar and taking more in the morning than at night because then we can use the energy that we provide for our activities.
Alcoholic beverages. Any beverage that contains ethanol, is considered an alcoholic beverage. Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram and contain no vitamins or minerals (except beer that contains some vitamins and some antioxidants red wine) states that its calories are empty. If you’re watching the weight, remember that alcohol calories count too.