Best and Worst Drinks For Weight Loss

Don’t Let Your Drinks Trip You Up

If you’re counting calories, it’s important to watch what’s in your glass as well as what’s on your plate. Choosing the right beverage -- and keeping an eye on how much you pour -- can help curb your appetite and cut calories. 

Best: Water

Replacing sweetened soft drinks with water will cut hundreds of calories from your diet each day. Drinking two glasses of water before a meal may also help you feel full faster, so you won’t eat as much. It can help speed your metabolism, too.

Best: Skim or Soy Milk

Beverages that are low in calories but high in nutrition are good options when you’re trying to lose weight. Skim and soy milk both fit that bill. Plant-based milk substitutes, like almond milk, typically have fewer calories than cow’s milk but less protein, so they’re not necessarily better for weight loss.

Best: Green Tea

It’s an excellent choice when you’re looking for a little boost. Not only is it calorie-free, but some research suggests green tea extract may help with weight loss. It's not clear exactly how, but caffeine and micronutrients called catechins may each play a role. The benefit appears to last only a few hours, so it may help to enjoy some green tea at least twice a day.

Best: Vegetable Juice

Vegetable juice is as nutritious as fruit juice, with fewer calories. One cup of tomato juice has 41 calories, compared to 122 for orange juice. Choosing juice with pulp gives you some fiber, too. That may help control your hunger.

Vegetable juice does have a lot of sodium. If you buy your vegetable juice from a store, go with a low-sodium variety if you can.

Best: Black Coffee

When you need a shot of caffeine, coffee is a better choice than soda or energy drinks. Black coffee is calorie-free and rich in antioxidants.

Studies show that drinking moderate amounts of coffee (about 3 to 4 cups a day) may improve your mood and help your concentration. It could also lower your chances of type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

Worst: Specialty Coffees

A 12-ounce caffe mocha can be almost 300 calories, and a vanilla latte can come close to 200. But if mochas or lattes are your thing, you can make a few changes to keep the calories in check. Most coffee places offer sugar-free syrups, or you can special-order your drink with skim milk. And be sure to skip the whipped cream.

Worst: Soda

Every time you chug a bottle of this, you get hundreds of empty calories. Switching to diet soft drinks can cut calories. But research is mixed on whether this switch helps you lose weight. If you eat or drink more calories than you burn, just sticking to diet soda may not do the trick.

Worst: Specialty Cocktails

Party drinks like margaritas or mai tais can be heavy on the calories, especially when you don’t make them yourself. The key with cocktails is to skip mixers like soda, juice, or premade cocktail blends. Instead, sip on something simple, like vodka and club soda. A 1-ounce serving of vodka ranges from 70 to 100 calories, and club soda doesn’t add any calories. If you need more flavor, try a spice-infused vodka.

Worst: Mocktails

Alcohol-free doesn’t mean calorie-free. Mocktails can be high in sugar and calories, depending on the fruit juices used to make them. If you want a fancy drink without the alcohol, look for ones made with sparkling water and flavored with herbs and spices instead of sugar-sweetened beverages.

Be Careful: Kombucha

This is fermented tea blended with sugar and a culture of bacteria and yeast. An 8-ounce glass typically has about 30 calories. It’s said to have several health benefits, including a hand in weight loss. But scientists are still studying it to find out for sure.

Be Careful: Beer

This isn’t really the ideal beverage if you’re watching your weight, but a 12-ounce bottle or can of light beer won’t typically give you more than 100 calories. A regular 12-ounce beer is usually about 150. When it’s poured from a tap into a 16- or 20-ounce glass, though, that number can climb up to 250. Craft beers can also have more calories.

Be Careful: Wine

A typically 4-ounce glass of wine usually has around 100 calories, though types can vary in calories and alcohol content. Also know that glasses and pours are often much larger than 4 ounces. If wine is your adult beverage of choice, watch the pour or slim it down by mixing it with a no-calorie beverage. For example, you can cut the calories in half with a wine spritzer that’s half wine and half club soda. 

Be Careful: Energy Drinks

While the active ingredient here is caffeine, these usually have other things in them like vitamins, herbal supplements, creatine -- and sugar.

If you’re watching calories, you’ll want to check the label carefully and look for ones without added sugar. The ones that show the amount of caffeine can let you know exactly what you’re getting.

Be Careful: Fruit Juice

Juice can have as many calories as soda, but it has more nutrients. This presents a dilemma: You want the vitamins and antioxidants without all the extra sugar. Look for 100% fruit juice. Steer clear of juice drinks that have added sweeteners. Check the nutrition label for the percentage of real juice. You can also slash calories by drinking water with a tiny bit of juice added.

Be Careful: Smoothies

Blend a banana, strawberries, and blueberries into a frothy smoothie, and you’ve got a delicious drink. Make your own, so you can control the ingredients: skim milk (or an alternative, like almond milk) and fresh or frozen fruit are all you need. Restaurant smoothies may include ice cream, honey, or other sweeteners that boost the calorie count sky-high.