When I started my weight loss journey, I focused solely on the idea of exercise for weight loss. It took me nearly a year of trying to make a substantial dent in my weight loss goals before I figured out that calories were the key. Some recent work in the Journal of Nutrition shows how the number of calories from drinks has changed over the last 30-years.
The Role Of Calories From Drinks In Weight Loss
When I started my weight loss journey, I was drinking about three 12-ounce sodas every day. Even though I was
running 30-40 miles every week, I wasn’t losing weight. When I finally got around to calculating my daily calorie intake, I discovered I was consuming an average of 3600-calories a day. At that rate, about 12.5% of my daily calories came from drinks. That’s just way more sugar than you should have a day to lose weight.
My wife and I have talked many times about how our calorie consumption has changed since we were kids. Growing up, my parents rarely kept sodas in the house. They were a treat. The only sources of calories from drinks in our house were sweet tea, Kool-Aid, milk, water, and the occasional orange juice. Those, we consumed in abundance. But even at that, the number of calories we consumed from drinks was a smaller number than as young adults.
Why the change?
For me, it started in college. The transition to college life lead to a convenience lifestyle. I was constantly busy, and storage space was at a premium. Sodas and other sugared drinks offer the ability to be stored without refrigeration, and they are available almost everywhere. Gradually, my daily drink consumption shifted away from my childhood habits.
An article in the Journal of Nutrition confirms what many of us probably already suspect. Over the last 30-years, as the profile of food consumption in America has changed, the consumption of sodas (and related beverages) has risen from about 11% of calories to 12% of calories, and milk/dairy products falling from 9% of daily calories to just 6%.
Now, my caloric drinks consumption has reverted back to something closer to that of my childhood. We rarely have sodas in our house, and what few calories I consume through drinks come from lightly sugared coffee or tea, and milk. The rest of the time, I drink pure water.
At first, it was a hard switch back to those early childhood habits. I thought giving up sodas would be extremely hard, but now that I’ve made the switch back, I can’t imagine drinking so many calories again.
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