When thinking about calorie intake, we tend to focus primarily on our favorite snacks and all of the mixed in ingredients and additions that makes food as filling and full of calories and fat as many of them can be.
This means we can tend to forget that some drinks also contain high amounts of calories that can easily put weight on.
Beer and soda drinks are some of the worst offenders for this that contain ‘Empty calories’ meaning they contain non nutritional benefits and only help to put weight on. But where does this leave coffee?
With 2 billion cups consumed around the world every day, many of us love this sweet beverage but are unaware of how many calories it actually contains.
Therefore to make this clearer, we have taken a look into exactly how many calories are in each cup of coffee, and if it has any nutritional benefits at all.
How Many Calories Are In A Cup Of Coffee?
If you are an avid coffee drinker and may be worried that the daily cup to get you up in the morning is causing you to put on some weight, you will be happy to know that a cup of coffee, without milk or sugar added, contains essentially no calories and has been shown not to cause weight gain.
In fact, the biggest and most prominent way coffee has been shown to lead to weight gain is because it can negatively affect sleeping patterns which can cause us to snack more at night.
Coffee with semi skimmed milk on the other hand does contain some calories, usually between 8 and 12 depending on how many teaspoons you add, however this does mean that the occasional cup will not lead to picking up any weight.
Coffee with 2 or more teaspoons of sugar contains much more at around 30 calories with the sugar spiking the calorie count much higher.
This is also why sugary soda drinks are so high in calories, often containing over 50 each can.
Lattes And Cappuccinos
The calories within coffee will not be due to the actual coffee itself, it usually comes from the extra additions we add to it such as the sugar and milk.
Coffee lattes can often be the biggest offender for this because they incorporate a mix of ingredients together to make for a delicious treat, but one that contains many more calories than a regular cup of coffee.
A small latte on average contains around 18 grams of fat which is a lot for a drink and nearly makes up a third of our recommended daily fat intake.
Flavored lattes that incorporate some of our favorite tastes including mocha, vanilla and caramel contain the most amount of calories at an average of 140 while non-fat lattes, while they are a lot healthier in terms of fat content, still contain around 70 calories with each cup.
In terms of cappuccinos, because of their slightly different mixture and added ingredients they are usually a bit healthier having only 50 calories a cup, however of course adding in any other flavors or tasty additions can make this much higher.
Choosing a non-fat cappuccino option where possible is definitely the best choice to make this drink as healthy as possible so you won’t have to worry about calorie intake while you enjoy your favorite creamy beverage.
What Coffee Contains The Most Calories?
A very popular coffee option among those following a ketogenic diet, the bulletproof coffee by far contains the most calories out of all types of coffee with at least 300 when using the standard ingredients which can easily be even higher with additional ingredients and flavors added in.
The reason this is the case is because of how bulletproof coffee is made and what exactly it’s designed for.
Bulletproof coffee essentially works as an all in one alternative to a big and hearty breakfast for when you don’t have the ingredients or time to cook one up for the long day ahead.
A standard cup contains a few cups of regular coffee, a few tablespoons of butter, a couple of grams of coconut oil and a whole host of other ingredients that help give us an instant tremendous energy boost that tastes incredible as one mixture.
With a drink this convenient there inevitably has to be some downsides however including increased cholesterol and extremely high levels of saturated fat which is what drives the calorie intake so high.
How Healthy Is Coffee?
This majorly depends on how much coffee you drink in a day, however for the most part a light to moderate amount of coffee is completely safe and will not lead to any health complications.
Up to 400mg of coffee a day, or 2-5 cups a day, has been shown to be entirely safe and even healthy for adults having been shown to lead to a lower likelihood of Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, heart disease and depression.
Additionally, while adding sugar can result in the calorie count rising by quite a bit, adding in milk really will not make a huge difference in terms of how healthy the coffee is, so feel free to add in a few teaspoons if you find it enhances the taste for you.
If you find that you are quite sensitive to the effects of coffee however, which a lot of people are, and that you get overstimulated easily, it can be a good idea to just monitor your coffee intake as too much of it can lead to jitteriness, heart palpitations and even anxiety attacks.
Summary
It can be easy to have some mental worries about how many calories really are in our favorite food and drink, however when it comes to coffee, luckily a standard cup contains little to none, so you can feel free to enjoy it in moderation.
Just make sure not to consume too much coffee that has other sugary additions such as in lattes, and if you ever drink a bulletproof coffee, only do so when you really need it in the morning.
One of the most common things I talk to my clients about is calories, but so few of them actually know anything about them.
Calories is not a dirty word. If you remove emotion from it, it is simply a unit of energy.
We need calories to live and thrive, and knowing how many to consume is important to ensure that you’re living a healthy lifestyle.
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