Lockdown Life Nutrition Tips Elaborated - Liquid Calories

Minimising your intake of liquid calories can be a good way to help get you into a calorie deficit. Which as we know is the centre point of achieving fat loss goals.

Drink plenty of water and stay hydrated

Calories from liquids can sneak up on you and often people overlook them in their diet.

Drinking plenty of water has a big benefit form the point of view of fat loss as it obviously contains no calories and also helps ensure you stay hydrated (with all the other benefits this brings).

General recommendations tend to fall between 2 and 3 litres of water per day. However, staying properly hydrated doesn't need to be overly complicated, drink to thirst and you should most likely be fine.

Choose diet/no sugar over full calorie

Drinking nothing but water isn't for everyone of course. Another effective strategy may be to switch from full calorie versions of drinks to diet or sugar free versions. The latter contains little to no calories and thus can help take a big chunk of calories out of what may be your usual intake.

For example, a can of Coca Cola contains around 140 calories, lets say for talking sake you consume 3 cans of this on average per day. By switching to Coke Zero you will have removed 420 calories from your daily intake with one simple swap.

Please note we aren't necessarily advocating for the consumption of fizzy drinks, as some of you may know this can be a hotly debated subject at times. Rather we are pointing out that from a body composition and fat loss perspective making the aforementioned switch might be a superior option for some.

Change up your daily coffee

Similarly, some people might find that an easy way to reduce their overall calories is to switch from elaborate high calorie coffees options to lower calorie simpler options.

For example, let's say you have a Vanilla Latte from Starbucks in the morning and one at lunch time (for those of you who are still working and not doing so from home or indeed pop out to get coffee during the day if you are). That amounts to roughly 506 calories just from coffee.

Now lets suppose you switch to having an Americano at these times instead. We are now looking at only around 6 calories, giving a total reduction of 500 calories. This could prove to be the difference between sitting at maintenance calories and being in what would be considered a good daily level of calorie deficit.

Minimise alcohol consumption

It's usually wise to minimise your alcohol consumption when your goal is fat loss. It eats into your calories budget, as it were, and can easily lead to you being in a surplus.

Not only that but it can often spill over into other areas like consuming high calorie "junk" foods that day and the next when the hangover kicks in and motivation ebbs.

If you are intent on consuming some alcohol or have occasions coming up where it is much harder to avoid it (albeit this is less likely during the current situation), then simple strategies like consuming spirits instead of wine or beer and having diet/low calorie mixers instead of full calorie ones can help.

Take action towards your goals

As with any nutrition based tips please bear in mind they are based on a normal healthy adult with no underlying medical conditions, if in doubt always consult with a qualified medical professional.

Hopefully you've found these tips for reducing liquid calories helpful. If you would like further guidance on implementing them and coaching to help achieve your fat loss goals, take a look at our Online Personal Training page and drop us a message!