Coffee is great... However...

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

_EPIC_ wrote: »

ITT People talk about how they ruin coffee.

This.

(I'm drooling just looking at this.)

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.

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.

lemurcat12 wrote: »

_EPIC_ wrote: »

ITT People talk about how they ruin coffee.

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