It is not just food that causes us to gain weight and while the majority of people assume it is just sodas that should be avoided, these are not the only drinks that are high in calories. Everyday drinks that you probably thought were harmless may well be the reason you are finding it difficult to lose weight

The Worst Culprits

• Sodas

We will start with the obvious drinks to avoid which are sodas. Regular are very high in sugar and can have as much as eight spoons of sugar in each can. This should be the first drink to eliminate if you consume them regularly. Just by avoiding these high sugar drinks you could see a noticeable difference in your weight. If you absolutely can not live without sodas, wean yourself off slower and switch to the diet version.

• Fruit Juice

Fruit juice is healthy surely? Well yes it is if you make it fresh or get it from a juice bar that makes it fresh on-site. However, the commercially available juices that you buy from most stores are almost always sweetened.

Also, if you eat the fruit instead of the juice, you are benefiting from the fiber that is found in the whole fruit.

Ideally you should make your own juice and a juicer is a relatively small investment when you compare it to buying fruit juice in the long term. You can mix and match the juices until you find one that you really like and then drink this an alternative to sodas and other fattening drinks.

• Tea & Coffee

If you were to drink coffee and tea by themselves they would not make a significant difference to your calorie intake. But how many people take their tea and coffee black? The problems occur when you start adding full-flat cream or milk as well sugar to sweeten them. It might surprise you to know that cream and two sugars has the calorific equivalent as a slice of chocolate cake.

Even black coffee should only be drunk in moderation as drinking too much can make your body less sensitive to any fat-burning benefits coffee might have. While it is purely anecdotal evidence, some people have claimed that if they drink black coffee before working out, they lose more weight! One possible - but again unsubstantiated - theory is that black coffee helps the body to use more fat for fuel when working out.

• Alcohol

There is little to say about beer as it is obvious that it can cause weight gain when taken in excess - hence the term ´beer bellies´.

Wine, in particularly sweet wine, also contains a high concentration of natural sugars. If you must drink wine, try and stick to dry wine as most of this natural sugar will have been removed during the fermentation process.

And alcohol in any form should be avoided as much as possible because of the relaxant effect that it has. After a few glasses of beer and wine, you will must more susceptible to eating any food you feel like and completely throwing your diet out of the window!

So sodas, commercial fruit juices and alcohol should be avoided or at least reduced to a minimum if you want to maximize your chances of losing weight in the shortest possible time.