The Worst Drinks for Your Body

How many meals do you consume a day? Three? Check again. If you drink many of our most popular beverages, you’re probably downing one or two additional meals’ worth of calories every single day, without even realizing it.

Whether it’s a frothy latte to start your morning or a “healthy” smoothie to quench a midday thirst, it’s easy to pack in an additional 300, 600, even 900 calories without taking a single extra bite of food. In fact, the average American drinks 420 extra calories every single day—that’s like tossing two slices of Pizza Hut Thin ‘N Crispy Pepperoni Pizza in a blender and hitting “puree.”

Or put it another way: Cut 300 of those liquid calories a day, and you’d drop more than 31 pounds in a year, without having to give up a single one of your favorite foods. To put the freeze on extra flab, we researched the worst coffees, smoothies, cocktails and energy “waters” in America. Drink in the knowledge—and start slimming down today.

THE WORST COFFEES FOR YOUR BODY

How’d you like to start your day with seven pastries’ worth of sugar? That’s what you’ll be slurping down if you get to the bottom of a venti whole-milk white-chocolate mocha with whipped cream. The “espresso with white chocolate-flavored sauce and steamed milk” beverage packs 620 calories and an astonishing 75 grams of sugar—more than you’ll find in seven of the coffee chain’s chocolate croissants. Are your hands shaking yet?

Starbucks Whole Milk Cappuccino

This one will save you 430 calories. Or better yet, switch your order to a grande green tea, which is proven in studies to blast fat. We love green tea so much, we made it part of our brand new weight-loss plan, The 7-Day Flat Belly Tea Diet and Cleanse! Test panelists lost up to 10 pounds in just one week!

Krispy Kreme is best known for their decadent donuts, so we weren’t too surprised that a 670-calorie coffee drink also found its way onto their menu. Made with ice, coffee and artificial sugar-based flavoring, and topped with fat-filled whipped cream, the Lotta Latte Chiller contains as many calories as 14 of the chain’s doughnut holes! And a small packs as much sweet stuff as 15 Domino sugar packets. (The large, 20-ouncer carries nearly double that amount!)

Krispy Kreme Iced Original Kreme Latte with 2% Milk

Nine of the 28 grams of sugar come from the milk, making this one of the best flavored options on the menu for your health.

And the #1 WORST COFFEE Is…

Dunkin’ Donuts markets this caffeinated abomination as “caramelicious.” More like calorie-licious! The frozen drink packs more sugar than you’ll find in 65 of the chain’s sugar-raised munchkins, and a mind-numbing 990 calories. In fact, for the same calorie punch, you could order a smorgasbord of DD delights, including a Bacon Egg and Cheese on a Croissant, an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie AND a Chocolate-Frosted Donut with Sprinkles—and you’d still have 60 calories to spare!

Dunkin’ Donuts Iced Coffee with Cream and Half Sugar

As a general rule, cool it on the caloric Coolattas and indulge in a creamy iced coffee instead. Even if you order a large you’ll keep 790 calories, 26 grams of fat and over 112 grams of sugar out of your cup—and off your body. Enjoy—but to truly get that flat belly, and blast fat rapidly, buy one of these 8 Best-Ever Drinks for Amazing Weight Loss!

THE WORST COCKTAILS FOR YOUR BODY

Long Island Iced Teas (or as the bar-hopping cool kids say, LIITs) are basically a sampling of every spirit known to man, topped off with a bucket of sugar (in the form of cola and sour mix) to help the medicine go down. After a night of drinking this cocktail, you’re bound to wake up the next morning with a horrific hangover and a noticeably larger gut. Switch to our slimmed-down version to keep nearly 100 calories and 13 grams of sugar—a nutrient that can cause diabetes and obesity if consumed in excess—out of your glass.

The Gatsby

Since the fictional entrepreneur knew how to throw a great Long Island party, we thought he’d enjoy this recipe: A shot of tea-flavored vodka (we like Firefly) with four ounces unsweetened iced tea, two muddled lemon wedges and one ounce of simple syrup.

Unless you personally blended the strawberries, you can assume this is a cup full of high-fructose corn syrup. You can also assume you’re going to have a pounding headache in the morning, a side effect of the additional sweet stuff.

Switch to a glass of bubbly with muddled strawberries and lemon slices to get your fruity fix for a fraction of the waist-widening calories. You’ll be thankful you did when you’re feeling bathing suit-ready the day after.

AND THE #1 WORST COCKTAIL IS…

While whipping up a frozen marg at home isn’t quite as bad as getting it from a bar (400 calories vs 700), it’s still the worst cocktail for your waistline. Made with a sugar-spiked neon mix and tequila, the summer staple will overload your system with more sugar than you’d find in nine Dunkin’ Donuts Apple n’ Spice Donuts! The better choice would be a mojito. Made with a bevy of healthy components–including lime juice, fresh mint and soda water–it will only cost you 135 calories and 8 grams of sugar.

A mojito (1 ½ ounces of white rum with 4 ounces of soda water, 1 ounce of fresh lime juice and 2 teaspoons of sugar).

THE WORST BOTTLED SMOOTHIES FOR YOUR BODY

Bolthouse may dub this bottled sip a “smoothie,” but a quick scan of the ingredient panel reveals it’s more of a juice thickened with some banana — that explains the low fiber count. What’s more, one bottle contains two servings, so take those belly-busting numbers and double them. Do your waistline a favor and bolt, fast, from this one.

You’re always best off blending your own smoothies, but with so many options, how can you know if you’re concocting the absolute best drink for your body? We identified the 7 most important ingredients for maximizing your workout results and blended them into one perfect recipe. Here is the absolute Best Weight Loss Smoothie Recipe Ever!

Newsflash: Drinking 54 grams of sugar won’t quench your thirst or satisfy your hunger. Odwalla Strawberry C Monster Smoothie really is a monster, and it ain’t Slender Man.

Dannon Light and Fit Strawberry Protein Shake

AND THE #1 WORST BOTTLED SMOOTHIE IS…

With a whopping 30 grams of protein, this is one of the most protein-rich smoothies on the market — too bad it’s also one of the most caloric. And since the majority of the bottle is filled with grape juice instead of whole fruit, there’s little fiber to offset the massive sugar surge. And don’t try to justify the calories with the notion that “chocolate is healthy for me.” Naked uses alkali-processed cocoa powder, which destroys most of the nutrients in the chocolate.

To build muscle and lose fat, blend these essential 10 Best Protein Shake Recipes for Weight Loss!

THE WORST CHAIN-STORE SMOOTHIES FOR YOUR BODY

Perhaps the “dream” in the name is induced by the sugar crash you have shortly after riding this Machine, which contains 30 packets of sugar. Built on a base of orange juice, orange sherbet, and nonfat frozen yogurt, this smoothie is a calamitous collision of sweets.

Jamba Juice Orange Carrot Karma Smoothie

The somewhat similar, but very different, Orange Carrot Karma cuts the calories and sugars significantly, and adds 4 grams of fiber, by swapping carrots into the mix. Speaking of veggies, throw some greens into your smoothie, using one from our new Eat This, Not That! special report: 10 Delicious Superfoods Healthier Than Kale!

The list of ingredients in this smoothie starts out well (peanut butter—we can get behind that for the protein) and turns sinister (frozen yogurt—what is this, a dessert?). The result is a caloric punch that’s nearly 200 calories more than a Big Mac—and nearly as much sugar as you’d find in two dozen Ginger Snap cookies.

Planet Smoothie Planet Pro® Cocoa & Banana

Ditch the froyo and go with the Planet Pro Banana & Cocoa. It might sound counterintuitive, but you’ll enjoy dessert flavors at a fraction of the calories and sugar if you choose this protein-packed smoothie instead. And if you love chocolate and the idea of losing weight while still enjoying it, consider trying this super-effective Drink This, Not That! Chocolate Milk Diet.

AND THE #1 WORST CHAIN SMOOTHIE IS…

This shocking smoothie is from the Smoothie King’s “Fitness Blend” menu, which promises you’ll “get toned” and “put on quality weight.” But based on its butter pecan ice cream base, you’ll likely be choosing quantity over quality in the weight-gain arena. Even the “Make It Skinny” option, in the smallest size, gives you 169 more calories than a Big Mac. This Hulk is not-so-incredible.

Smoothie King Vegan Dark Chocolate Banana

And if you’re truly serious about getting toned and don’t want to ever go hungry—or get fat—indulge guilt-free in the 50 Best Snacks in America!

THE WORST “WATERS” FOR YOUR BODY

Any water with more than 20 grams of sugar has no place in your diet. If real South Beachers guzzled SoBe Lifewater every day, they wouldn’t be able to fit into their bikinis.

Function Light Weight Blueberry Raspberry

With claims like “zero calories” and “no sugar” you’d think this was a harmless drink mix. But when you look at the ingredient list you see 12 ingredients, including the artificial sweetener Sucralose and sucrose acetate isobutyrate, a thickening or “weighting” agent also found in printing inks.

SkinnyGirl Water Enhancer

While there are still more preservatives in here that we would like, at least it doesn’t contain “weighting” agents. It has vegetable juice for color and Stevia Extract and cane sugar for sweetness.

And the #1 WORST “WATER” is…

Adding just one of these to your daily intake will put 13 pounds on your body in a year. The benefits from the “vitamins” in this VitaminWater, like vitamin A, are outweighed by that sugar count. Drinking one is like popping a pill along with 6 spoonfuls of Domino.

Nestlé Pure Life Kiwi-Strawberry Splash