Coffee is great... However...

24

Replies

  • tracefan
    tracefan Posts: 382 Member
    I fill half the cup with coffee and half with hot water. That lightens it up and you can use less cream and sugar.
    Interesting. I may try this.
  • tracefan
    tracefan Posts: 382 Member
    MommyL2015 wrote: »
    You could add the half and half, and then maybe a bit of milk to kind of lighten it? I'm on a flavored creamer kick, but find I have to add too much to get it the way I like it, so kind of mixing it with a bit of 1% or 2% milk helps. If it didn't, i'd just add the creamer. I will not give up my morning coffee.

    Yes maybe I'll try this.
  • tracefan
    tracefan Posts: 382 Member
    erickirb wrote: »
    OP, start drinking good quality coffee and you wont need cream, milk, or sugar

    I do drink good quality. I have a restaurant style machine in the wall too. Still not happening for me. Urgh.
  • tracefan
    tracefan Posts: 382 Member
    Sadly I just really enjoy my
    Coffee. The way I have it with half and half. Once again having to change my life because of calories. Dammit lol
  • crispsandwich
    crispsandwich Posts: 177 Member
    butter - i cant give up butter
  • MarioLozano16
    MarioLozano16 Posts: 319 Member
    Learn how to cold brew coffee. It takes the acidity out of it and tastes great
  • 42firm03
    42firm03 Posts: 115 Member
    Gradually reducing the amount of real half and half worked for me. I still use it but now enjoy coffee with 2 tablespoons of HnH or 1 with 2 TBLS milk.
  • chandanista
    chandanista Posts: 986 Member
    Gevalia coffee with one sweetener packet and a bit of vanilla. Took me a while to perfect the taste. It's heaven.

    At work we have Folgers. I've reduced to a single creamer (pre measured) and one Splenda when I drink a mug at work.
  • gramarye
    gramarye Posts: 586 Member
    edited February 2016
    OP, if you really, really want it like that -- you do you. Just measure it accurately, log it, and work it into your calorie goal.

    However, you can totally wean yourself off of that much cream and sugar if you want to. I went through phases in my twenties; black coffee for years, then nothing but super sweet cream and sugar in my coffee, then just cream, etc. I eventually worked my way down to 1 tsp of sweetener in black coffee, which now to my taste buds tastes plenty sweet. Sometimes I add two tbsps of half-and-half or flavored creamer on the weekend when I'm feeling luxurious, lol. I recommend doing it slowly, tbsp by tbsp, until one day you realize that black coffee is just fine.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    _EPIC_ wrote: »
    ITT People talk about how they ruin coffee. :(
    tumblr_ny4gnfxT7o1t1cy7no1_400.jpg

    Heh, this is totally how I feel about threads like this.

    That said, I also recommend trying milk and cutting back gradually.

    Or just work the calories into your day and eat less of something else.
  • bonneboo
    bonneboo Posts: 27 Member
    edited February 2016
    I'm with you on that coffee. For me it has to be extra strong and extra sweet. People have told me how to drink my coffee to save calories but I'm not hearing it, if they know how to save calories, dont they think I also know how to save calories?. I log my coffee just like everything else. Not giving up the way I drink it. I dont use any cream or milk.
  • veganxpizza
    veganxpizza Posts: 40 Member
    almond milk
  • Wagners7
    Wagners7 Posts: 10 Member
    I can't give up my creamer either...It's really not even about the coffee. Lol! But I just factor it into my day and cut in other area's. But, when I do cut coffee completely out of my diet and then go back to drinking coffee, I notice that it seems that starting my days with coffee w/creamer sets off more cravings for sweets through out the day. I seem to be able to fight off those cravings better when I'm not drinking coffee at all.
  • thatshistorical
    thatshistorical Posts: 93 Member
    I use the regular or sugar free coffee mate creamers (or any non dairy creamer.) It tends to be the most carbs I have all day, unless I eat cottage cheese or fruit later on.

    I'm not a huge sweets person, so it keeps me satisfied and away from higher calorie treats. Although...I do have a bag of chocolate chips in my desk drawer. I dole them out (about 8-10 if I feel like I really want them) and suck on them if I need a sweet fix. It takes me half an hour to eat them all.
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,961 Member
    I used to take mine double double (2 cream, 2 sugar) and now I like it black - as long as it's from the right place. Maybe you're finding you like a lot of cream because the coffee where you buy it is actually terrible? Hahah. That being said, I still treat myself to fancy coffee about once a week. Except that Tim Horton's has Roll Up the Rim now... so it'll be every day until that's done...
  • rlv20
    rlv20 Posts: 7 Member
    I love my morning coffee with French vanilla creamer. I make uber-rich, dark coffee with freshly ground beans, steep it in a French press then add the perfect amount of creamer to offset the beautiful bitterness with just the right sweetness. It's an integral part of my morning.

    I tried very hard to give it up because the richness of my coffee dictates using a large amount of creamer - easily 200 calories for a "normal" sized cup. I tried half and half, milk, low-cal creamers, making my own, etc. Nothing was just the same and I really wanted this in my morning. I tried organizing my daily calories around my indulgence, but found that at eating 1200 per day, 200 for coffee was ridiculous.

    My solution? Just have less of it. I now measure 2 tablespoons of creamer into a small coffee cup and only fill it up about 2/3 of the way with coffee. Volume-wise it's about half of what I used to drink, but I still get that perfect flavor combination that starts my day with only 70 calories.
  • tara_means_star
    tara_means_star Posts: 957 Member
    tracefan wrote: »
    erickirb wrote: »
    OP, start drinking good quality coffee and you wont need cream, milk, or sugar

    I do drink good quality. I have a restaurant style machine in the wall too. Still not happening for me. Urgh.

    I'm with you. I've tried to drink my coffee black. Surprisingly I liked that better than I like it with milk BLEGG! Now, I just drink it with half and half. I have been able to lessen the amount of half and half I put in--my coffee used to look albino, now I just put one tablespoon per cup. It took some getting used to it but now I prefer it that way. I log it and build my day around it. One tablespoon only sets me back about 20 calories and I think that's a worthy use of my calories.
  • Lextmg86
    Lextmg86 Posts: 102 Member
    I was pretty bad with coffee AND half&half. I switched to green tea (W/Mint, Lemon, Ginseng etc) about a month ago and have had success.
  • Espresso345
    Espresso345 Posts: 42 Member
    No, Coffee is AWESOME. Coffee is proof God loves us and wants us to be ALERT.

    I have given up sugared sodas, carbs and Cthulhu-knows-what-else. But my morning cup o' joe has 3 TABLESPOONS HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM (and Splenda!) and you can take it away from me when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.

    I can still lose weight and have all my numbers line up beautifully - but I have to stick to the rest of the diet and get my weights and cardio in.
  • ilex70
    ilex70 Posts: 727 Member
    No, Coffee is AWESOME. Coffee is proof God loves us and wants us to be ALERT.

    AMEN!
  • nadler64
    nadler64 Posts: 124 Member
    _EPIC_ wrote: »
    ITT People talk about how they ruin coffee. :(
    tumblr_ny4gnfxT7o1t1cy7no1_400.jpg

    This.

    (I'm drooling just looking at this.)
  • MommyL2015
    MommyL2015 Posts: 1,411 Member
    bonneboo wrote: »
    I'm with you on that coffee. For me it has to be extra strong and extra sweet. People have told me how to drink my coffee to save calories but I'm not hearing it, if they know how to save calories, dont they think I also know how to save calories?. I log my coffee just like everything else. Not giving up the way I drink it. I dont use any cream or milk.

    This. But I do use milk, just not sugar, unless it's in flavored creamers. I can't do black coffee. Even "good" black coffee. Coffee is my breakfast, so I usually have plenty of room for it the way I like it.
  • xcalygrl
    xcalygrl Posts: 1,897 Member
    If you don't want to give up your half and half, don't. Log how much you're using and make it work with your day. You could work on reducing how much you use over time to lessen the impact it has on your calorie budget, but you don't have to give it up if you're not there yet.

    Also, I'll sometimes water down my coffee if it's way too strong. It makes it more palatable for me. You could try putting a little water in your coffee then half and half to see if that makes it easier on your taste buds and calorie goal.
  • sassysisterjd
    sassysisterjd Posts: 41 Member
    I'm in the buy better coffee camp! When you find the right tasting coffee you won't need as much to mask the flavor- I just add a little milk to mine now and I used to have to drown it in creamer.

    Plus, you know, the fewer calories each cup of coffee has, the more you can drink! ;)
  • cavewoman15
    cavewoman15 Posts: 278 Member
    i used to do sugar and cream. it's taken me a long time (years), but i've come to the point, slowly but surely, where i can use a splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk happily. i drink 8-10 cups a day (i'm a professor, we're a coffee-addicted group), so it's important to my diet. here is my recommendation on how to get there:

    1. as a couple above posters said, use good coffee. buy the beans, a cheap grinder on amazon, and grind at home. this makes a bigger difference than you can imagine. i get my beans on amazon (8am coffee) but you can buy much nicer ones if your budget allows. i find grinding the whole beans results in much better taste, even if they are cheap. if you have access to a world market (the weird furniture store, not the full grocery store), they have cheap beans at good quality. don't even touch that nasty folgers/maxwell house stuff.. i swear it's just coffee-flavored cardboard flakes.
    2. measure it. both the sugar and the cream. know what you are putting in there and log it. don't lie to yourself. think about what you can eat or drink (!!) if you reduce those calories.
    3. pick either the sugar or the cream to start with. i recommend the sugar. reduce it by 25%. when you get used to that, do it again. then you'll be at half the sugar and can move to the cream. (it's not that sugar is necessarily evil, it just isn't necessary and is empty calories).
    4. reduce the cream by 25%. when you get used to that, reduce by another 25%.
    5. if you like vanilla almond, soy, or coconut milk, i would recommend that next. the reason is because they have a little more flavor, even if you get the unflavored variety. if you don't like it, whole milk will do for this step. put in the same number of cals of whole milk as your 1/2 reduced cream was (will be more in volume = more creaminess for you!). i was at this step for a really long time, but it was a much better place than where i started.
    6. at this point, i'd switch back to reducing the sugar until you can get it out of there. this will make everything you eat sweeter. it's weird, but it's awesome. since i reduced (almost removed) added sugar from my diet, primarily from my coffee, fruit tastes like cake. seriously, bananas are so sugary to me. you can imagine how much this helps my diet. i was also at this step for a long time. here, i used cream instead of vanilla almond/soy milk sometimes, but the same number of calories (and less than half where i started b/c the sugar is gone and the cream is halved).
    7. when you get the sugar removed, you might be happy with the level of calories in your milk. you might still want to reduce, and then you can do so slowly. as i mentioned, i have been able to go to unsweetened almond milk which is just 40 cals a cup (i use 1/2 cup or so a day), and i can drink it black if something isn't available (not my preference). when i'm out to breakfast, i use half a creamer per cup (one is too much now). but as you make your way down this list, i think you'll find that each step will be easier rather than harder because your tastes really do change (at least mine did).

    **warning -- i know not everyone will agree with the following statements. this is my personal stance, backed up by my own research, but still, no disrespect to others who feel differently** i would not recommend skim milk. that stuff is mostly water so will not help your cause. same for 1% or 2%. it won't fulfill your craving for creaminess and you'll just end up using a lot of it and will stay hooked. i've been there. i also wouldn't recommend sweeteners, but that's perhaps a personal preference. i have worked hard to eliminate all sweeteners from my diet primarily because they are actually sweeter than real sugar, which does nothing to help with the sugar cravings (i.e., makes them worse). same goes for low-fat and/or sugar-free flavored creamer. i don't even know what that stuff is. i do drink vanilla almond and soy milk, which certainly has some artificial ingredients, but much fewer than the sugar free creamers, and that's a trade-off i've decided to make. maybe one day i'll be all black coffee, but i'm not there yet.

    sorry for the novel. this is something i have thought a lot about and worked hard on and i'm happy to share my experience and knowledge. good luck!!! you can do it.. but it does take time. be patient with yourself.
  • ClosetBayesian
    ClosetBayesian Posts: 836 Member
    I put a scoop of chocolate protein powder in mine. I'm not a big breakfast person, so I don't mind drinking the calories in the morning. Tastes great.
  • MelaniaTrump
    MelaniaTrump Posts: 2,694 Member
    edited February 2016
    10 cups a day? Osteoporosis is a horrific. "You lose about 6 milligrams of calcium for every 100 milligrams of caffeine ingested,". Milk (calcium and vit d) can be good in coffee.
  • Sarahb29
    Sarahb29 Posts: 952 Member
    I use almond milk or full fat cream. You don't need much heavy whipping cream to turn the coffee a light brown color like you're talking about. Some people add coconut oil and butter to create bullet proof coffee too but I'm not sure if that's for me.
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    _EPIC_ wrote: »
    ITT People talk about how they ruin coffee. :(
    tumblr_ny4gnfxT7o1t1cy7no1_400.jpg

    Heh, this is totally how I feel about threads like this.

    That said, I also recommend trying milk and cutting back gradually.

    Or just work the calories into your day and eat less of something else.

    +1
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    Just be honest when you log your heavy cream and sugar. I have my coffee black.