Drinking Calories: What do dieters drink?
It’s been a long time since I drank my calories – in university I gave up soda (Diet, actually) after I found it ineffective at keeping me up studying for engineering finals. Since then, I’ve probably had soda once or twice a month, if that.
I know fruit juice, which I love dearly, is to be avoided and I do very well – only fresh-squeezed orange juice when I feel the twinges of a sore throat, and cranberry or apple only on special occasions (and when I can actually find it here in Italy).
But what about going out? Drinking in a bar? I love aperitivo here in Italy, the pre-dinner drink which is accompanied by a buffet. It’s turning out to be a bit detrimental / dangerous to my diet but so far I’ve found good veggie and healthy options wherever I am.
It’s the drinks. What do I drink?
So far I’ve rotated between vodka tonics and Aperol spritz – the latter being a classic aperitivo drink. I know I should be aiming for a diet Coke + vodka/rum which I sometimes order, but it goes back to the drinking sodas thing I’m trying to avoid forming a habit.
So what do I drink?
Surprisingly, it looks like a white wine might be a winner, or at least the best when I can’t get a diet mixer (like diet tonic). An article on Yahoo about the best drinks for dieters gives more suggestions, but most of them rely on diet mixers (which expecting to find in Italy is like going into a trattoria and asking for healthy carbonara.
So the quest continues. Any suggestions?
Sugar: Love me or Hate me?
A spectacularly long article in the New York Times magazine, titled “Is Sugar Toxic?” which had some interesting tidbits.
Like:
But marketing aside, the two sweeteners are effectively identical in their biological effects. “High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference,” is how Lustig put it in a lecture that I attended in San Francisco last December. “The point is they’re each bad — equally bad, equally poisonous.”
It’s a long read, but worth it. The summary of it, however, is:
So the answer to the question of whether sugar is as bad as Lustig claims is that it certainly could be. It very well may be true that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, because of the unique way in which we metabolize fructose and at the levels we now consume it, cause fat to accumulate in our livers followed by insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, and so trigger the process that leads to heart disease, diabetes and obesity. They could indeed be toxic, but they take years to do their damage. It doesn’t happen overnight. Until long-term studies are done, we won’t know for sure.
So imagine my surprise when today a positive article about sugar came out in the NYT, “How Sugar Affects the Body in Motion” about how sugar may not have the same effect on people who exercise vs. those that don’t.
Over all, Dr. Johnson said, the “current science suggests that exercise exerts a positive physiological influence” on some of the same metabolic pathways that sugar harms. “Exercise may make you resistant to the undesirable effects of sugar,” he said.
Not that any of us should live on sweets. “Sugar is not all bad,” Dr. Johnson concluded, “but it’s hardly nutritionally good, either.” The best sweet option, he added, is fruit, which comes prepackaged with a small but satiating dose of all-natural fructose.
So what have we learned today?
- All things in moderation
- And exercise, yes.
Diet Confession #1
I’m living in the land of pasta, and I’m not eating it, and I’ve never felt better.
Though it’s not completely off my radar – I permit myself once and a while, but the surprising thing is I’m not craving it at all.
Power Snacks
I really needed some great ideas for snacks – it’s not the mealtimes that are my problem, it’s the in-between. I love the flax seed/nut mix, and the herbed cheese (I would use cottage) with veggies suggestion.
Power Snacks on WholeLiving.com
Food Blogger on a Diet 