Are Drinks Ruining Your Progress?

You can reach your health goals faster by choosing the right drinks

August 2020

By Alex White, Dr. Nick Beard and Dr. Robert Ostfeld

Why do drinks matter?

Changing what we drink can help quickly bring blood pressure down. Of course, old habits die hard. If you’re drinking too many caffeinated, sugary or alcoholic drinks, you may need extra time – or even professional support – to help cut back. Still, there is plenty of evidence to suggest changing your drinks can be a powerful step for many people starting out on a health journey.

Getting Started

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Soda

The saying ‘don’t drink your calories’ is never truer than for soda. A can has up to nine tablespoons of sugar and 150 calories. Unlike food, it won’t fill you up – so, if you drink it, expect to be packing on the pounds before long. Quitting soda, and any other sweetened drinks, is one of the best things you’ll ever do for your health.

Water

Dehydration can increase blood pressure. We usually suggest at least eight glasses of fluid a day with most of those glasses being filled with water. That said, if you have kidney problems or heart failure consult with your doctor first on what a safe amount of fluid might be for you. If water seems boring, try adding lemon slices, apples or frozen berries for flavor.

Hibiscus tea

It might sound wacky, but this tea has been shown to lower your systolic blood pressure by four to six points – making it as effective as one leading anti-hypertensive drug. For that reason, we suggest getting into the habit of drinking one or two cups each day. Be warned though, it has quite a tart flavor – so you may want to try one that’s blended with something else.

Other teas

If you’re not a tea person we get it. How many of us are? But there are dozens of teas out there which can help bring your blood pressure down – ranging from green, white and black teas to herbal teas like Chamomile and Valerian. So maybe it is time to proudly step outside your comfort zone and try something new. We think you won’t regret it.

Homemade smoothies

Smoothies are an easy way to start consuming more plant-based foods. A good place to begin is with bananas and berries. If you feel adventurous, throw in some beets, leafy veggies or flax seed meal. All these things have been shown to help relax our blood vessels and bring down our blood pressure. Remember though, smoothies will fill you up less than the whole fruit so more than one or two a day may make it harder to control your weight.

Coconut water

Coconut water can be a good source of potassium – a mineral which offsets the negative effects of salt on your body. Just be sure to choose one that’s as natural as possible – with no added sugar or preservatives — and be careful of drinking too much of it, especially if you are trying to lose weight.

Alcohol

Too much alcohol can increase your blood pressure, so we recommend following the American Heart Association’s recommendation of no more than one alcoholic drink a day for women and two for men. If you find yourself regularly drinking more than that and would like help cutting back, feel free to ask us about the options that may be available to you.

Common Mistakes

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Fruit juices

Unlike blending fruit, juicing it removes most of the nutrients and fiber. That leaves water and sugar – so nutritionally speaking it’s closer to soda than fresh fruit. Like soda it is also linked to weight gain and diabetes.

Bottled smoothies

Be wary of non-homemade smoothies. Many have sugar, preservatives and even salt added. The same goes for sports drinks. Don’t be fooled by the tens of millions of dollars manufacturers spend telling us sports drinks are healthy or performance enhancing. Most are basically just sugary water.

Diet sodas

The saying ‘don’t drink your calories’ is never truer than for soda. A can has up to nine tablespoons of sugar and 150 calories. Unlike food, it won’t fill you up – so, if you drink it, expect to be packing on the pounds before long. Quitting it, and any other sweetened drinks, is one of the best things you’ll ever do for your health. Diet sodas can make us overeat at mealtimes, resulting in weight gain. Weight gain is one of many reasons why you might want to stop kicking the soda can down the road and quit it completely.

Caffeine

Experts disagree on caffeine’s long-term effects – partly because we all react differently to it. That said, most authorities agree that limiting our intake to about two caffeinated drinks a day is likely wise. It is also worth steering clear of energy drinks, diet pills, or other highly concentrated sources of caffeine.

Useful Resources

If you’re looking for convenient, but not necessarily cheap, smoothie options you might want to try a delivery service such as Daily Harvest. If not, you can just search on ‘plant-based smoothies’ and you’ll get dozens of recipes. Otherwise, all these drinks are widely available and not too expensive – even if you buy organic versions, which we recommend doing if you can afford to.

Alex White and Dr. Nick Beard Co-Founded Brightplate.

Dr. Ostfeld is the Director of Preventive Cardiology at Montefiore Health System and a Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has an MD. form Yale University School of Medicine and an MSc. from Harvard School of Public Health. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology.