Coffee - Can It Affect Your Weight Loss?

For hundreds of years coffee has been a morning stable for weary workers looking to energize their mornings. It was not viewed with romance and it didn't have any allure besides its pungent aroma and caffeine. It was the drink for truckers and tired moms. It was sold at donut shops, diners and quick markets. It was drank straight by the hardcore, with milk by the less daring and with sugar by those who liked the effect but weren't sure about the taste. If you were European, you might drink it as a shot as Espresso or with steamed milk as cappuccino. But for the most part, coffee was a working class beverage drank to start the day or to keep it moving.

That changed 40 years ago when an aggressive, or shall we say, foolish, entrepreneur decided to make coffee cool. It is difficult to say what his spouse or friends said when he told them that he was going to open a coffee shop and charge three or four times the going rate for coffee. High end restaurants charge more but everything is more expensive at high-end restaurants. How could a coffee shop do it?

Of course, his vision changed the way we viewed coffee or at least the experience of buying and drinking coffee forever. Coffee shops are not just coffee shops anymore. They are destinations; they are statements about who we are. They are where friends meet to talk or where bloggers go to write. You don't order a small coffee, you order a Tall coffee. And you don't just order a coffee; you order a coffee with chocolate and whipped cream or an iced coffee with caramel and steamed milk. You then add sugar, lots of sugar.

What does this have to do with weight loss?

You will not gain weight by ordering coffee at these re-engineered coffee shops. Straight black coffee contains about 5 calories. The main active ingredient is caffeine. The benefits or detriments of caffeine are still being debated but it seems like the benefits may outweigh the negatives. But black coffee is so passé. People will tell you that they love their coffee but how would they know. Coffee is a carrier for milk, cream, sugar, chocolate, whipped cream or anything else you can think of adding.

These delicious additions come at a cost. They add calories. They add lots of calories. The five calorie drink quickly turns into 300 or more calories. In fact, a large chocolate coffee at one coffee shop is nearly 700 calories. That could be half to a third of your total calorie needs in one drink.

You don't have to stop drinking coffee to lose weight. But you may have to limit the designer coffees or at least order them with skim milk and without sugar or whipped cream. You may even try coffee straight. You may find that you like it that way. But I doubt it.

Gregg Ghelfi is founder and contributor to http://fitinthemiddle.com. Fit in the Middle is dedicated to providing information and resources on nutrition, fitness and weight loss. We invite you to read our blog at http://fitinthemiddle.com/blog/ and comment on the various articles. We also welcome you to submit guest blogs to info@fitinthemiddle.com.

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