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Danger: Are Liquid Calories Sabotaging Your Diet?

By Tim Chudy

If you've started a healthy nutrition plan or worse yet, a diet, you've probably made a conscious effort to control the calories from the food you eat. But have you thought about the liquids you drink? Many times people can overlook the beverages they consume throughout the day. Some say that a few sodas a day will not do any harm while many others, including health professionals, encourage reducing and/or eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages from the diet to prevent weight gain and a number of other related health concerns.

What are liquid calories? The average American would probably be unsure of how to answer this question. Liquid calories are calories consumed throughout the day associated with beverages. The next question: How important are these calories? The primary source of calories for the average American diet used to be white bread. Now, however, Americans are getting their largest source of calories (more than 7%) from soft drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages. In addition, the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey in 2000 found that more than two-thirds of respondents reported consuming enough soda and/or other sweetened beverages to provide a greater proportion of their daily calories than from any other food.

As you can see liquid calories can be a problem in your diet. There are an enormous amount of individuals that can consistently consume 44 ounces or more of a soft drink, throughout the course of a single meal or a quick stop at the gas station, adding approximately 150 grams of sugar and an astounding 600 calories! These calories are considered 'empty' calories meaning that they add zero nutritional value to the diet being primarily sugar. With this large input of sugar, the pancreas must produce an immediate, large surge of the hormone insulin to rid the bloodstream of excess glucose and place it into the tissues of the body. Eventually, this excessive intake will reduce the response of the pancreas, increasing the concentration of glucose in the bloodstream, and thereby increasing the risk of developing adult onset, or Type 2, diabetes.

A recent study at Harvard University found that women who drank at least one sugary soft drink per day were twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared with women who drank less than one sugary soft drink per month. This correlation can also be directly linked to the weight gain associated with the soft drink intake in the higher risk patients; a gain of more than 10 pounds in four years. The excess calories add to the overall calorie intake and, therefore, even a seemingly small 16 oz. of a sugar-sweetened soft drink per day would result in ingesting 44 pounds of sugar per year.

Liquid calories are not perceived the same way that solid calories are and tend to be overlooked especially in a structured nutrition program. Consuming a 12 ounce sugar-sweetened soda will provide an additional 150 calories to the daily diet; however, it will not make you apt to consume 150 calories less throughout the day. The physiological reason for this is that liquid calories do not appear to trigger the satiety mechanisms in the brain as solid foods do. This would be a direct correlation as to why individuals feel less guilty about consuming the 32 oz. of soda in comparison to the 2.17 oz. pack of Skittles which are nearly identical in nutritional facts; having sugar content exceeding 90% of the total calories. The lack of nutritional content of sugar-sweetened beverages should deter anyone from taking these empty calories in when striving to meet nutritional and fitness goals.

About the Author:

Tim Chudy, St. Louis' Top Fitness Expert, speaks and writes on a variety of health and fitness topics. He is owner of Fitness Together, a private personal training studio in St. Louis, MO. You can contact him by