You are what you drink
Reader Diana writes to us about being bored with all the water in her weight loss regimen:
I have been following your and Amanda's weight loss success. In your comments on 4/14 I am quoting from your article..."too much fast food, soda instead of juice or water"... What kind of juice(s) do you drink? I often drink water with my meals but get tired of it sometimes and would like something different.
Here's my reply:
Thanks for writing to us, Diana.
I’ve been told that there’s danger in replacing soda with juices because there’s a lot of sugar in 100% juice – but there are also a lot of vitamins, and the sugar isn’t refined. I don’t drink as much juice as I used to drink soda, but I do like to have a glass of orange juice (not from concentrate – Amanda picks on me for caring about the difference) with breakfast. One eight ounce glass of orange juice (it’s easy to overdo it) is 2 servings of fruit – so you’re well on your way to your recommended daily servings in the morning.
I also enjoy cranberry juice – though what you’ll usually find in the grocery store is a mix of cranberry and apple juice. Amanda used to live and work on Cape Cod, where cranberry bogs are huge and she’s explained to me that pure cranberry juice is just too strong for most people. But if you’re going to go the cranberry route, make sure that you get something that’s 100% juice and not one of the cranberry juice cocktail drinks they’re peddling that have something like 10% juice.
The people who make V8 also make V8 Fusion(http://www.v8juice.com/fusion.aspx), a blend of fruit and vegetable juices that is actually good – as opposed to the straight V8, which Amanda learned she didn’t like the hard way. But they also make V8 Splash, a drink that is delicious but not 100% juice.
There are also a number of great diet juice and tea mixes that you can make at home. I like the Target brand ones myself – they make a peach iced tea I could drink all day that I think is something like 5 calories per serving.
What are you guys drinking?