When I lived in Texas, my girl and I used to hit up the Red Lobster every other weekend. We’d crack jokes, catch up (school kept us very busy, plus my added little bundle of joy) and enjoy a couple of drinks. Namely, the gloriously decadent Lobsterita. A delicious [not-so-] little 18oz margarita.

Full of tequila and triple sec from the first Lobsterita, I’d go in again! “One more for the road! I’m in there like swimwear!” Clearly drunk.

Let’s do some quick math, shall we? One Lobsterita – 890 calories. Guess who had two? Allow me to raise my hand.

1,780 calories went strictly to drinks. Stuff that couldn’t even substantially fill me up. Granted I enjoyed myself, but 1,700 is more than I eat in a single day now… if the mixed drink game is like that, then I’d rather do straight tequila shots. (Not advocating that at all, though. Just sayin’.)

Here’s my point. Calories are not to be wasted. Sure, there’s plenty of good food out there that people love to indulge in.. but how valuable is it to your body? People love a Twinkie all day but darn if they don’t notice that the stuff is so far removed from being food that it doesn’t perish. There are no nutrients in a twinkie to even cause it to mold or rot. How valuable could that possibly be to your body?

That brings me to drinks. If there are no nutrients in what you’re drinking, it is empty calories. A waste of an opportunity to nourish your body properly. You’re taking in something that simply isn’t beneficial to your body in any capacity.

Think about this. If I drink a single 20oz pepsi every day for 30 days, that’s what – about 250 calories (100cals per 8oz)? So that’s a total of 7,500 calories from drinking a single pepsi every day. Considering how 3,500 calories is the equivalent of a pound… you’d lose at least two pounds from dropping the pepsi habit. Look at it this way. Orange juice is about 100 calories per every 8oz serving. You’re going to get vitamin C, calcium, as well as vitamin b – in their natural origin (meaning those vitamins naturally exist in oranges, they’re not put there by scientists in a chem lab) – and because of those nutrients, it’s going to fill you up.Your body will have obtained what it needed in the form of vitamins, and will send the signal that you don’t need much more.

Which 100-calorie indulgence is going to be more beneficial to your body? 8oz of pepsi, or 8oz of orange juice? Especially since I can almost assure you that you won’t need to drink as much orange juice as you could drink in the soft drink. More on that later.

Every time you take in food, you should be taking advantage of the opportunity to nourish your body. Yes, the soft drink might give you sugar-originated energy, but wouldn’t some green tea do the same? Wouldn’t a regular cup of coffee do better for you than a [insert super long name] from Starbucks? And really, wouldn’t anything do better than the 860 calorie cup of egg nog? (Yes, 860 calories, and when I saw it, I started to cry. I love egg nog.)

What do I drink? I drink lots of water. I drink lots of teas. I occasionally indulge and serve myself a glass of rum. I gave up soft drinks a very long time ago, and I find it hard to take oranges in drink form. I use apple juice sparingly. I don’t drink anything that may have partially come from a powder, or anything that recreates the taste of a fruit (so all the strawberry, grape, watermelon and orange impersonators – yes, that means YOU, Sunny D – need to fall back!).

I ask you, take a good hard look at your daily eating habits. Is there an excess of useless calories in there? If so, why not swap it out for something a little more useful to your body? I promise, it’ll thank you for it in multiples!

Tell me… what drinks aregoing to be the most difficult for you to give up? Which ones are you going to try to give up? Let me know!