Trim Healthy Mama Plan (14 page)

Y
ou're going to learn how to drink yourself trim. Anything you put into your body in liquid form is absorbed much faster into your bloodstream. When it comes to weight, a drink can either be the worst offender or the best trimming tool. Finding your trim will depend upon you having the knowledge to tweak your liquid world to your healthiest favor.

If your drink contains sugar, your blood glucose levels will immediately sky rocket. This rapid sugar high is worse for your body than a regular sugar high from food, which is already bad enough. It is basically fat in a drink, and that still applies to all those “fat-free varieties,” too. Most sodas are fat-free but with every gulp they pour on the pounds.

We have to tackle the baddies first. Don't worry, the goodies list is coming. We just need to nullify some options from your brain's playlist. Once these naughty guys are removed, a new world of liquid goodness will open up to you.

Soda/Pop—
Do we really need to say anything else here that hasn't been said about this stuff? The hazards of soda have been preached over and over, yet soft
drinks are a sixty-billion-dollar annual industry. Okay, we'll take our turn: In a nutshell, they are the death of a trim waistline. The problem is that we are told to quit soda, but willpower doesn't last long, so we have to have something equally as delicious to replace soda with. Never fear, all the bubbles you could ever want can be had the healthy way. We'll show you how in our recipes; but if you want store-bought, there are already many brands of
stevia-sweetened soft drinks available. Or a more budget-friendly approach is to enjoy sparkling water mixed with natural, plan-approved sweeteners and flavored with extracts found at any grocery store.

Highly Caffeinated
Energy Drinks—
They usually contain high amounts of sugar combined with mega amounts of caffeine. They might seem like a quick fix, but in the long term they are energy thieves that can rob the life out of your adrenals. The sugar-free versions are usually sweetened with artificial sweeteners so are not a great choice for your body.

Coffee—
Nah! Just kidding. You can drink joe on the plan, although we recommend moderation. If you're drinking coffee all day just to survive because you're not getting enough sleep, that is coffee abuse and not moderation. Coffee itself is not the problem, it is what you put in it that can make it naughty. You'll learn to drink coffee without undoing its wonderful health benefits by adding sugar and processed creamers. Most coffee-shop concoctions—think double-mocha, caramel-fudge-swirl latte—might be hip but are very cruel to your actual hips. If you want the coffee-shop experience, stick to regular brewed coffee or Americano with optional heavy cream or half-and-half. Pull out an on-plan sweetener from your purse and you have it made. (More about coffee soon.)

Sweet
Tea—
It might be what you grew up with, but this drink is the undoing of trim waistlines all over the globe. Tea is on the plan; sugar is not. You're going to learn to sweeten up your tea with our on-plan sweeteners and you'll love them. Check out Sweet ‘n' Slender Iced Tea in the “More Drinks” chapter of the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
.

The following drinks aren't doing you any favors, either:

Fruit Juice—
This is the greatest deceiver: Even 100% juice is 100% fattening. Never remove fruit juice from its own fiber. Eat the whole fruit in E meals, and if using in a smoothie, throw the whole thing in the blender (minus the rind and seeds).

Honey-Sweetened Tea or Coffee—
While raw honey has health benefits and we'll tell you in
Chapter 13
, “Sweet Mama,” how it can be implemented on plan, using it in drinkable form daily is a sticky fat trap.

Diet Soda/Pop—
Artificial sweeteners are not part of Trim Healthy Mama. We're not saying you have to quit your diet sodas today. Baby-step your way and if you have a
diet soda or two while you're still figuring out your meals, we won't shun you! You'll do this in your own time and let your taste buds adapt to natural zero-calorie or low-calorie sweetened sodas rather than artificial ones.

Milk—
It does the body good? Feeding your baby your own milk certainly does. Allowing your high-metabolism children to drink some whole, raw cow's or goat's milk does, too. Drinking it yourself, as a full-grown adult, does not (if you have weight to lose). If you are a natural, super-skinny type, have at it if you can find a source for pastured raw milk. But milk is a fat-and-carb combination, a natural Crossover in liquid form, which means it is more weight-promoting than a Crossover in solid form. We've got lots of yummy milk alternatives that will cream up your smoothie or bowl of oatmeal, or make a fantastic chocolate milk. You can easily find unsweetened almond, flax, cashew, and coconut milks at grocery stores and they are all on plan. Did you read the word
unsweetened
? “Original versions” without the word
unsweetened
means sweetened with sugar of some kind. You will smartly sweeten up your plan-approved milks at home.

Sports Drinks—
These are often extremely high in sugars and artificial colors. Stay far away from those! Some vitamin waters are sweetened with stevia and erythritol—check labels. If you can find ones sweetened that way, they'll be fine.

Health Food Store Drinks—
Just because your bottled drink comes from your local, organic market does not mean it is trim or health-friendly. The following drinks can put a bunch of organic weight on you.

Enough with the naughties. There are so many goodies in your drink future, you won't feel deprived. Check out our beverage section in the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
for our All-Day Sipper recipes or check out some of our videos of them on our website or on YouTube. Good Girl Moonshine has become as much a household “brand” in Trim Healthy Mama Land as Coke is around a college vending machine. This drink can help you kick the soda habit and pep up your health. Good Girl Moonshine was first in the line of Sipper drinks that we created to help you stay happily hydrated on your THM journey. Also, in the beverages segment of our cookbook, check out the Shrinker, which does as its name suggests and helps to shrink your fat cells! We have a free video for that, too. The Singing Canary is another in our popular Sipper series. If you love orange juice, this can give you that fix. Turmeric, the star ingredient in this drink, is known as a cancer fighter, an adrenal healer, and an inflammation fighter and is also a skin-beautifying tonic.

These drinks have been around for centuries, so why would we be so cruel as to suddenly rip them from your life? Our stance is go ahead. Shouts and cheers! Fist pumps and high-fives all around. We join you in a resounding “Yay!”

It was all the rage in the 1980s to vilify coffee. Coffee and cigs went together. Take a sip on one and a puff of the other. Not so anymore. You can drink your coffee without the slightest bit of guilt. Latest research has exonerated coffee of its bad reputation. It is a myth that coffee leaches minerals from your body, and it is a myth that coffee is dehydrating; but you should not count it as part of your water intake.

In moderate amounts, both coffee and tea are beneficial because of their extraordinarily high antioxidant amounts and mood-lifting abilities. Black tea, oolong tea, and green tea can be consumed more liberally than coffee since they have less caffeine. These teas can aid in weight loss (especially oolong tea, which is an important ingredient in the Shrinker), can calm nerves due to their theanine content, and are antiaging tools.

Coffee elevates
dopamine levels, which contribute to a feeling of happiness and can lessen the chance of getting Parkinson's disease. Numerous studies indicate that coffee consumption is associated with a sharply reduced risk of
Type 2 diabetes, including an eighteen-year follow-up study on Swedish women released in the
Journal of Internal Medicine
. A 2012 study released in the
Journal of
Agricultural & Food Chemistry
found that coffee is able to inhibit toxic amyloid proteins that are normally found in the pancreas of people with Type 2 diabetes. The Chinese researchers in this study found that four cups per day slashes the risk for diabetes in half! Logic says it doesn't make sense to put sugar in coffee if we want to benefit from these diabetes-fighting components.

Coffee is now also considered by many researchers to be a
cancer-fighting drink. Laboratory studies show that it may have an anti-tumor effect against ovarian, colon, liver, and other cancers. A study released in the May 2011 edition of
Breast Cancer Research
showed that postmenopausal women who drink moderate to large doses of coffee are also at significantly less risk for an aggressive type of breast cancer known as “estrogen receptor (ER)–negative.”

You certainly don't have to drink coffee to be a Trim Healthy Mama, but if you love the idea of coffee with a swirl of real
cream in the morning you've found the right plan. When we say swirl, we don't mean a third of a cup. No, your dreams are not dashed—you can get a good creamy coffee from a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream; even one
tablespoon of it makes some of us happy. Others need three tablespoons or they feel deprived, and we can't let that happen! They do just fine like that. You'll find your own heavy creamy sweet spot that your body can handle. If you are postmenopausal, you may want to err on the side of one to two versus three tablespoons. You can also use half-and-half if you prefer. If you want a super-indulgent coffee now and then with oodles of cream, have at it—but don't make that your constant.

Sometimes you will be having an E breakfast. Coffee and cream is an S beverage: Keep this in mind if you're not wanting to cross over on purpose, otherwise you'll be doing it by mistake. Not to worry: A small amount of half-and-half rather than heavy cream can still leave you in E mode. Or, we have created a way of creaming up your coffee for E or Fuel Pull needs that is delicious and health-promoting. It is called the Trimmaccino Light and it can cream up all your
teas, hot chocolates, and coffees without too much fat added. Check out the “Hot Drinks” chapter of the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
for lots of Trimmaccino recipes. If you happen to like your coffee black, that is fine, too, or if you enjoy a little unsweetened almond or cashew milk in your coffee…that works. Those are Fuel Pull options and harmonize with any meal style. But some of us think black coffee is blech!

To all our British, Kiwi, and Aussie Mamas: We were born in New Zealand and grew up Down Under in Australia before moving to the United States, so we know not to mess with your hot tea. A spot of milk in a cup of hot tea is compulsory under the Commonwealth—well, not quite; but we're not going to go against the might of the royal family. A spot of milk is not enough to do any damage; we're not talking a quarter of a cup here. You'll be fine. We raise our tea cups and pinkies to you in salute!

Fruit juice drinkers: Fruit-flavored
herbal teas will be a fantastic replacement for you. Brewed, then iced and sweetened up to perfection with plan-approved sweeteners—nothing better! The same applies to peppermint tea. So refreshing! Check out our fruit-flavored slushy recipes in the “Frozen Treats” chapter of the
Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook
for more fruity goodness.