Drink off the pounds

Rodale book offers smarter choices for beverages

May 28, 2010|By Irene Kraft | OF THE MORNING CALL

America has a serious drinking problem, says David Zinczenko, editor-in chief of Men's Health magazine.

Coffee, soda, milk shakes, smoothies, fruit boxes -- the drinks that are part of everyday living -- are the culprits. Most people don't realize these drinks are contributing to this nation's expanding waistline.

Drinks tend to be a ''good guy'' in our lives, bringing instant gratification. They quench our thirst on hot days and warm us up when it's cold, notes Zinczenko, 40, who lives in New York City and Allentown.

But not all drinks are good guys, he says. He hopes to open eyes and shrink waistlines with the information he offers in his latest book, ''Drink This, Not That!'' (Rodale, $19.99, 319 pp.). It arrived in bookstores Tuesday.

It's the eighth in the ''Eat This, Not That!'' series that has sold more than 6 million copies. The cookbook ''Cook This, Not That!'' is now on the New York Times best-seller list.

''This is an exciting one because I think in pulling it together, the most amazing thing I've learned is that it's not so much what we eat that's making us fat. It's what we drink,'' says Zinczenko, an Allentown native who moved to Bethlehem in his youth to graduate from Liberty High School and Moravian College.

Information on drinks is important if you're among the more than 40 percent of Americans on a diet at any time, he says. Most people are focused on what they're eating, giving little attention to what they're drinking.

But calories from beverages account for 21 percent of our daily intake, or more than 400 calories in a single day, Zinczenko says. That's twice as many as we consumed 30 years ago.

You can shave pounds at a good rate without sacrificing some of your favorite foods by making swaps in what you are drinking, replacing high-calorie, high-fat and high-sugar drinks with healthier alternatives. Zinczenko provides plenty of alternatives in ''Drink This, Not That!''

A Johns Hopkins University study found that people who cut liquid calories lost more weight but also kept it off longer than people who cut food calories, Zinczenko says.

If we cut beverage calories in half, back to what Americans drank 30 years ago, we could lose more than 23 pounds a year.

Over the years, the way we view beverages has changed. ''We stopped thinking of soda as a treat and started seeing it as the equivalent of water,'' drinking it four or more times a day, Zinczenko says. ''The average American now drinks about a gallon of soda a week.''

We've also stopped drinking tap water. Instead we buy it from bottles filled with artificial flavors and labeled ''vitamin'' or ''energy.'' Those vitamin or energy drinks are a high price to pay in money and calories, with little in return.

Take Snapple Tropical Mango Antioxidant Water. It has 150 calories. Two of its antioxidants are vitamins A and E, which are fat soluble. But water is a fat-free beverage, so your body will have a tough time absorbing them. An hour or so after drinking, you'll be flushing them away.

Coffee, one of the biggest offenders, offers a huge wake-up call. We stopped making our own coffee, replacing it with coffeeshop drinks that are laden with fat and have four times more calories.

An example is a 20-ounce Starbucks Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha with Whipped Cream. It's got 660 calories, 22 grams of fat (15 of them saturated), and 95 grams of sugar. That's more calories and saturated fat than two slices of Domino's deep-dish pepperoni pizza. It has about the same amount of sugar as 81/2 scoops of Edy's Slow Churned Rich and Creamy Coffee Ice Cream.

And that's not the worst choice. A 24-ounce Dairy Queen Caramel MoolaLatte has 870 calories, 24 grams of fat (19 saturated) and 112 grams of sugar.

''When did a 35- to 40-calorie cup of coffee at a coffeehouse become a 350-calorie or more drink?'' Zinczenko asks.

If we get back to drinking coffee and not coffee drinks, we could lose an average of 18 pounds a year, he says.

We need to go back to basics, says Zinczenko, who's a regular contributor to NBC's ' 'Today,'' and has appeared as an expert on '' The Oprah Winfrey Show,'' ' 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show,'' ''Good Morning America,'' ''Primetime Live,'' ''20/20'' and '' Rachael Ray.''

Nothing can be more basic than water from the tap. According to one study, 75 percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated. Another study found we're drinking just over a liter of water each day, about half of what we should be drinking.

With so many more appealing drinks available, water may seem boring. So Zinczenko offers ways to punch it up with fruits, herbs and sugar-free syrups.

He explores sugar, which he calls public enemy No. 1 in the fight against obesity and other chronic health problems. He also looks at sugar substitutes and diet sodas and why they aren't the solution in fighting obesity.

''What I've learned from nearly 20 years of doing this is that it's what you eat in general over the long haul. You can indulge if you do it intelligently,'' Zinczenko says. ''And you don't have to worry about a moment of guilt.''



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