Drink This, Not That!

16 swaps that will save you big

• Kids' Juice
• Lunchbox Drinks
• Juice
• Beach Booze
• Summer Cocktail
• Classic Cocktail
• Beer
• Light Beer
• Coffee
• Iced Coffee
• Wintry Starbucks Treat
• Protein Shakes
• Fruit Smoothie
• Yogurt Smoothie
• Iced Tea
• Blended Fruit Drink

My buddy, Bill, came to me a while back looking for advice on how to banish the bulging belly he had acquired in his later years. I skipped the diet lecture and instead gave him a copy of the book, Eat This, Not That!, and a single piece of advice: Start with the drinks chapter.

Four months later, Bill has adopted the simple food swap philosophy and dramatically altered his calorie intake without giving up the foods and drinks he loves. His reward: 25 pounds and three inches off of his waistline—in around six weeks!

I told Bill to start with beverages because between soda, coffee drinks, smoothies, and booze, he was sipping away more than a quarter of his daily calories. He’s not the only one. A study from the University of North Carolina found that we consume 450 calories a day from beverages, nearly twice as many as 30 years ago! This increase amounts to an extra 23 pounds a year that we're forced to work off—or carry around with us.

There’s good news and bad news when it comes to liquid calories. The bad news is they are the most difficult calories for us to gauge, because we have none of the greasy, cheesy visual cues we get when we go face-to-face with a plate of loaded nachos or a triple cheeseburger. The good news is that they are the easiest calories to cut from your diet. Just ask Bill.

I've identified the most bloating beverages in gas stations, bars, smoothie counters, and coffee shops across America and replaced them with sensible and satisfying stand-ins for a fraction of the caloric cost. So you can sip what you want, skip the diet, and still lose lots of weight this year.

Original here