The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

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I used to drink at least four venti (large size for Starbucks n00bs) quad-shot caffe mochas a week. I have since given those up, but after reading about the “latte effect” on financial blogs like TheSimpleDollar, I got curious again - how many calories was I consuming with each quad-shot mocha? (For that matter, how many uncounted calories do we as Americans consume from beverages and snacks?) Turns out each venti quad-shot mocha was 390 calories (add 100 calories if you take whipped cream). While specifying skim milk drops the calories, most people, like me, just accept the default.

That’s a lot of calories for a drink. Some have even more:

• A venti hot chocolate is 450 (add 100 for whipped cream)
• A venti white chocolate mocha is 530 + 100
• A venti white hot chocolate 620 + 100
• Going for cold blended drinks? Venti fraps range from 260 (Tangerine) to 620 (Strawberries & Cream) - even the “healthy” Pomegranate has 390. Add 130 for whipped cream.
• Even the light blended coffee fraps have 200+ calories.

Adding a tasty treat to your tasty beverage? The lowest-calorie item is the lowfat blueberry muffin, weighing in at 280 calories. Other items range from 280 (plain bagel) to 520 (coffee crumble cake). Some items still have trans fats. Apparently, the nutrition information changes depending on location, so check out the Starbucks nutrition page more accurate info.

Now, before I get slammed again, like I did talking about Subway - yes, there are choices involved. You could choose a smaller drink. You could choose soy or skim milk (soy has more calories and, depending on brand, may have HFCS, by the way). You could choose a different drink - black coffee has nearly 0 calories. The point isn’t the choices you could make, it’s awareness of the choices you do make - how often did I mindlessly visit a Starbucks and walk out with a venti quad mocha and blueberry scone for a total of 800 uncounted calories? Uncounted, because it’s small, not a meal and mostly beverage. Were I not aware of the caloric value of these drinks, how can I make a healthy choice regarding my Starbucks consumption? Healthy lifestyle choices require mindful decisions, which I cannot make without educating myself on things I consume.

So, what about this “latte effect” I mentioned earlier? According to the basic premise, every time I would buy a $4 coffee, I should instead put that $4 into savings. Trent at The Simple Dollar presents a nice breakdown of the impact the latte effect could have:

If you walk into a coffee shop on your 25th birthday and plunk down $4 on a latte, that $4 goes away. If you just took that $4 and stuck it under your mattress for 40 years, you’d just have $4 when you’re 65. But if you took that $4 and put it in an investment that earns 5% (like a treasury note) for 40 years, you would have $28.16.

Let’s say again that you buy a latte a week until your 65th birthday. That’s 2080 lattes, which costs a total of $8,320 (and that assumes the price will not go up for 40 years, which means it’ll be more than that in reality). With that same investment, you’d have $26,590.67 at age 65.

Granted, there’s no direct analog to applying the latte effect to physical fitness - there’s no calorie bank you can places calories into when not spending them on a venti mocha, whereupon at age 65 you suddenly shed 80lbs. There are, however, two important concepts that do apply:

1. Every single calorie I consume counts towards weight loss.
   No matter how big or small - whether snack, meal or beverage - every single calorie contributes to obesity. Just like every single unbudgeted dollar spent keeps you from being rich, every single unbudgeted calorie consumed keeps you from your ideal weight. It is, of course, much more complicated than that, but the basic concept stands - count every calorie.
2. Every single food and exercise decision I make impacts my lifestyle.
   Saying to yourself “it won’t hurt to have a piece of chocolate just this once” is a fallacy - one choice becomes a pattern, patterns turn into habits, and habits become permanent mindless routine. Instead of reacting to a momentary impulse or craving, treat your body like a bank account and budget for that chocolate. Are you going to finger-food party later? Eat greens and fruits for your meals prior and walk an extra mile at lunch. Budgeting your calories helps you keep it real and honest, both with eating and finances. Before, I would charge a treat on my body’s charge card and pay finance charges - “I’ll walk an extra 20 minutes tonight to work off this chocolate.” Now, I budget ahead of time, making choices instead of reacting to impulses.

Now that I budget my calories and dollars, I have a healthier body and money in the bank. Still drinking those Starbucks drinks and eating Starbucks scones and muffins? Head over to http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition_info.asp and start budgeting for your snacks, or apply the “latte effect” to your life and start saving what you’d spend. Your body, and your bank, will thank you.

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