Voor een goed gewicht: let op wat u drinkt.*
Hier een goed advies van de universiteit van Michigan: let op wat u drinkt.
In de praktijk blijkt dat de meeste mensen wel 20% van hun calorieën binnen krijgen uit drank, terwijl wereldwijd max. 10% geadviseerd wordt. Nu wordt het ons ook niet makkelijk gemaakt want veel drankjes bevatten veel onzichtbare calorieën, zoals bijna alle frisdranken die veel suikers bevatten. Doch ook fruit- en groentesappen bevatten als ze niet uit 100% sappen vaak veel suikers. Kijk dus goed op het etiket en laat u niet voor de gek houden door bijv. de opmerking gemaakt met fruitsap. Sport- en energiedranken bevatten doorgaans ook veel suikers en kunnen goed zijn voor echte duursporters doch niet anderen. Zij bevatten wel veel elektrolyten die zorgen het er minder vocht afgedreven wordt doch energiedranken zorgen voor een snelle piek en een scherpe daling in de bloedsuikerwaarde bij gewone gebruikers. Alcoholhoudende dranken bevatten ook veel calorieën. De beste dranken zijn gewoon water of thee.
The
beverages you drink could be ruining your diet
Think you’ve got your diet under control?
You may be gulping down hundreds of unwanted calories without even knowing it.
“Believe it or not, more than 20 percent
of our daily calories come from the things that we drink,” says Susan Aaronson,
M.S., R.D., wellness coordinator for the MFit Health Promotion Division at the
University of Michigan Health System. “In fact, the World Health Organization
recommends that people consume only about 10 percent of their calories from
liquids. So those extra calories from liquid beverages are adding to American’s
obesity epidemic, making it more difficult for people to lose weight.”
According to the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey, about 136.5 million Americans are overweight. Of
these people, about 64 million are obese.
And for the millions of Americans who are
trying to lose that extra weight, the solution may not be in what you eat, but
what you drink, says Aaronson. To help you make healthier beverage choices –
from soda and sports drinks to fruit juice and milk – and cut back on calories,
Aaronson offers the following tips.
Soda
“Soda is full of sugar and empty calories, making it a major contributor to
the obesity problem in the United States,” says Aaronson. ”If you chose to
eliminate one can of soda each day, which contains about nine teaspoons of sugar,
you can lose about a pound in one month; and over the course of a year, you can
lose up to 15 lbs.”
And since it has no nutritional value,
filling up on soda also prevents you from getting calories from sources that do
contain essential vitamin and minerals. But if you absolutely can’t live
without a soda, Aaronson instead recommends drinking diet soda, or reserving it
only for special occasions.
Fruit and vegetable juices
Are you drinking ‘fruit juice’ or some beverage labeled ‘fruit drink’?
The difference can mean extra calories and few nutrients, says Aaronson.
“Read the label carefully,” cautions
Aaronson. “If a juice label says that it’s ‘made with real fruit juice’,
it may actually contain less than 10 percent of ‘real’ juice and about seven
teaspoons of sugar. The best juice drinks to pick are those that say they
contain ‘100 percent juice.’”
Parents should be particularly vigilant
about how many juice boxes they allow their kids to drink each day. Just
one juice box contains 100 calories, and four of them are equal to about a
quarter of the amount of calories a child should consume in one day.
Aaronson recommends limiting yourself to
one serving, or five ounces, of juice a day. The rest of your daily servings of
fruits and vegetables should come from actual pieces of fruits and vegetables.
Real fruits and vegetables contain the daily fiber your body needs that you
won’t find in fruit drinks.
Milk
Choosing low-fat milks can help you save hundreds of calories each day, says
Aaronson.
Milk also contains vital nutrients like
calcium, protein, vitamin D, and vitamin A that you won’t find in other
beverages. Plus, it is recommended that you get three servings of dairy every
day.
To get the most from your milk, Aaronson
says to choose 1 percent, 1/2 percent, or skim milk. With these options, you
will still get all the nutrients your body needs but without the extra calories
and fat.
Sports drinks and energy drinks
Although sports drinks replenish your body with electrolytes that help you
retain water and stay hydrated, they still contain a lot of calories –
one-half to one-third the amount of sugar you’ll find in soda.
“Sports drinks were actually developed
for endurance athletes,” explains Aaronson. “So if you plan to exercise for
more than one continuous hour, then sports drinks are for you.”
And you won’t find a lot of nutritional
value in energy drinks, either, notes Aaronson.
“Energy drinks are not only loaded with
calories, but they’ll give you a quick high, followed by an extremely-low low
afterward,” explains Aaronson.
Alcohol
If you are planning an evening of dinner and drinks, remember that you could
have the calorie-equivalent to a whole meal in drinks only, before you’ve
eaten anything at all.
The average glass of wine has about 100
calories and a 12 oz. beer contains approximately 150 calories.
According to Aaronson, it’s not uncommon
for a mixed drink to have about 300 calories and the decadent frozen drinks like
daiquiris to have 500 or more calories each. So limiting the number and types of
drinks you have before eating will make a major difference for your waistline.
Water
So what is the ideal beverage to quench your thirst? It’s the colorless,
odorless, and tasteless refresher that makes up over half of our body mass:
Water.
“Water is the single most important
beverage that we can consume,” says Aaronson. “A person could drink only
water and be just fine, as long as he supplements his diet with food sources
that contain calcium and other nutrients that one may find in other beverages
such as milk and juice.”
In general, 80 percent of a person’s
liquid calories should come from water depending on their height, weight, and
where they live. That means the average adult should drink between 4 and 6 cups
of water a day, which should be supplemented with milk and 100 percent juice to
meet total daily liquid requirements.
Another option is flavored water that is
fortified with vitamins. But Aaronson says if you’re already eating a healthy
diet, there’s no reason to drink vitamins in the form of water.
The bottom line: “The next time you think
about digging into the fridge for a soda, save yourself the money and the
calories and reach for the tap instead,” says Aaronson.
(Sept. 2006)