All Piled Up: The Downsides to Drinking Calories

All Piled Up: The Downsides to Drinking Calories


What’s The Scene?

Obesity is rising among urban people, especially among kids. The blame mostly goes to indoor attractions and tasty, energetic yet un-nutritious eating preferences, a large part of which are the sweetened beverages. In fact, carbonated drinks are more of a social standard now that’s hard to be neglected.


Calculating Calories:

Every time you down a sweet, fizzy drink, you take in 250 calories along with 68 grams of sugar, which have no nutritional benefits. That’s equal to 17 teaspoons of sugar, which you won’t have with your tea or coffee if you are sane.

Forget about that now; just think if you would like that calorie in a solid form. Calories as food satisfy more than calories from drinks and hence, lessen cravings. That eliminates the need to drink calories before a meal to end up eating less.

Liquids have lower density than solid foods and hence require more to feel satiated. Hence thick smoothies were introduced but even then they don’t compare to solid foods. Thus, they clear from the stomach quicker than solid food and make a stretched out stomach return to its original size within sometime. This creates the hunger pangs and urges to eat more.


Few Simple Remedies:

Soup. This is one exception: that soothes hunger as much as solid food does. From the plain broth to those with pureed fillings, they give you the safer calories than just one lab-packaged formula. Some argue that even protein shakes do the same, but protein shakes still need time to prove a magic bullet for obesity.

However, they do help to an extent and you need to replace one meal every day with a shake and not use it as a drink to have anytime you feel hungry. This will help to lose weight. Relying entirely on protein shakes actually turn losing weight more difficult. And those who have a knack for culinary stuff may whip up the following for liquid yet healthy calorie intake:

  • Fruity Tofu Cooler: Gives you 201 Calories and 6g Protein. Made from white grape juice (¾ cup), Honey (1 tsp), Silken tofu (¼ cup) and ice cubes (2). Put any fruit you like, minced (1/2 cup) and blend to smoothness.

  • Tofu Fruit Shake:A 360-calories pack with 11g Protein. You need 300g of soft tofu, 3/4th cup sweetened soy milk, 1/3 cup frozen fruit juice, 3 tbsp honey and a banana. Blend everything and serve chilled.

  • Chocolate Shake: Another 360 calories drink that delivers a gram less of protein. Both chocolate milk (1 cup) and chocolate ice cream (½ cup) are needed, some also like adding chocolate syrup (1 tbsp ) or orange sherbet (½ cup ).

  • Cottage Cheese Smoothie: A salty smoothie is not that bad a thing, especially when it delivers just 310 calories and 11g Protein. Required: cottage cheese (1/3 cup), vanilla ice cream (½ cup), fruits and gelatin (optional, ¼ cup each).

Reviewed By:

Dr. Kaushal M. Bhavsar (MBBS, MD)

Assistant Professor in Pulmonary Medicine, GMERS Medical College, Ahmedabad