The Starbucks Diet

I've recently fallen into the habit of visiting a local Starbucks on a frequent basis to have a drink and a pastry. Although I enjoy having a tasty treat, I also have been noticing that I've been feeling pretty draggy and tired lately, and my clothes seem a tad tighter than they used to be. Hmm. I suspected a combination of excessive caffeine, together with blood sugar highs and lows brought on by a sugary snack, together with just plain too many calories. So I checked out the Starbucks site for some nutrition information. Here's what I found - I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was.

A 12-oz (tall) mocha without whipped cream and using 2% milk - the way I usually have it - has 200 calories, 6 grams of fat of which 3.5 grams are saturated fat, and 31 grams of carbohydrate, of which 24 grams are sugars, and 95 milligrams of caffeine. A tall (12 oz) cappuccino with 2% milk, which I also like, has only 90 calories, 3.5 grams of fat (2 grams saturated) and 9 grams of carbohydrates (8 grams of which are sugars), as well as 75 milligrams of caffeine. I usually add one packet of sugar (4 grams) to a cappuccino, which ups the carbohydrates to 13 grams and the sugars to 12 grams. That's a lot better than the mocha.

Now for the interesting part - I always knew scones were "pricey" from a dietary point of view, but I had no idea of how expensive they were. My favorite scone, the cranberry orange one, has 470 calories, 17 grams of fat (9 saturated), 69 grams of carbohydrates (27 grams of sugars), and also has 460 milligrams of sodium. That's 26% of the % daily values for a 2,000-calorie diet for fats, 45% of the daily values for saturated fat, and 24% of the daily values for carbohydrates as well as 20% of the daily values for sodium - all in one scone. The blueberry scone is even higher in fat, although slightly lower in carbohydrates.

No wonder my clothes were starting to get tight! If I had a mocha and a cranberry orange scone, that would be 670 calories (33.5% of a 2,000-calorie diet), 23 grams of fat (35%), including 12.5 grams of saturated fat (63%), 100 grams of carbohydrate (35%) including 51 grams of sugars (the equivalent of almost 13 teaspoons of sugar) and 24% of a daily maximum for sodium. Not the best building blocks for a healthy diet!

I think I'll try to go out for coffee less often - I don't need that much caffeine on top of my daily morning coffees at home and tea in the afternoon - and when I do I'll stick to the cappuccino and give the mocha and scone a pass, except on a rare occasion as a treat.