A Habit That May Be Costing You 500 Calories per Day

January 4, 2010   6 Comments

Warm milk, sugar, and a little coffee mixed together is a definition of bliss. In the afternoon, when you are flagging at your desk, a visit to Starbucks keeps you going in a dreamlike state so your day goes faster.

When the first Starbucks arrived in the Atlanta airport, I was elated. Finally, a way to get decent coffee on my travels! I was living in Athens, GA at the time and while Athens has great cafes - the airport was a sad situation.

Before I had kids, I worked in an office that sat on top of a Starbucks. I could get down to the store, and back up to my cubicle in record time. I bought latte after latte without thinking about the calorie content or the negative impact of all those paper cups. Since then, my attitude toward Starbucks has changed.

This is a photo of a Venti White Hot Chocolate. It has 2% milk and whipped cream and a whopping 23g of Fat, and 77 grams of sugar. If I had ordered the Tall with no whipped cream and non-fat milk, I'm still looking at drinking 270 calories. This is not a small snack.

Starbucks added all these frothy, sweet, milky creations when their sales flagged in the afternoon. Yes, everyone stopped by to get their morning cup of joe - but the store was empty at 3 PM. Enter these INCREDIBLY fattening concoctions: Egg Nog Latte, Caramel Brulee Latte, Peppermint Mocha, Gingerbread Latte......

These special drinks have a very wonderful mixture of sweet, fatty, and salty. Their taste and texture is very hard to resist. See my post here on addictive junk food: Would you Like To Add Some Heroin To Your Order?.

When you are faced with the "afternoon-blues" what should you do? How about just plain Coffee? With a little milk and sugar, you won't hurt yourself.

What do YOU order at Starbucks? Please share!

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