I was reading the news today and came across a story about the Starbucks Diet and how a Librarian by the name of Christine Hall lost 85 pounds eating only at Starbucks!
Naturally I was curious as losing 85 pounds is no small thing. Was Christine living on coffee? Does Starbucks have some magical snack that helps you effortlessly shed pounds? Is it all a media fabrication?
I’ve been in Starbucks a few times, and like any coffee shop they make the bulk of their money selling sugar. They have a case full of muffins, cookies, and pastries; plus a drink menu full of lattes, ‘frappuccinos’, and other sugar-laden beverages. It does not seem like the kind of place where you can lose weight!
Come to find out, the Starbucks Diet has a lot in common with the McDonalds Diet and the Subway Diet, which is to say Christine carefully counted calories while getting all of her food from Starbucks.
Yes she drank coffee – but it was either black or sweetened with a non calorie sweetener. She ate oatmeal for breakfast, had a ‘bistro box’ with fruit and cheese for lunch, and a panini for dinner. No miracle snack, no sugary treats, and no sugar-laden drinks.
The Truth About Weight Loss
The one thing in common with all of these ‘restaurant diets’ is that the people involved ate very specific foods and tracked everything they ate.
Christine ate as little as 876 calories a day, which is a bit on the excessively low side, so no wonder she lost weight. Pretty much everyone should be able to lose weight eating 876 calories a day, especially if they’re eating healthy food.
The truth is, no matter what diet you follow there is 1 simple rule you must follow to lose weight:
You must consume fewer calories than you burn.
That’s it! If using a gimmick diet helps you accomplish this, then you’ll lose weight. If tracking everything you eat helps you stick to a specific caloric intake, then track what you eat. If eating all your meals at the same restaurant helps you stick to a specific caloric intake, then do that!
The truth is, eating every meal at Starbucks is unnecessarily expensive and probably lacking in core nutrition. I’d imagine that Christine takes multivitamins and other supplements to get her daily requirement, although I’d recommend eating a larger variety of food too.
At the end of the day, if eating all your meals at Starbucks helps you lose weight then go for it, but it’s important to recognize the tools that led to Christines success if you want to successfully lose weight yourself.
#1 – She ate less calories than she burned
#2 – She tracked everything she ate
If you do the same you’ll lose weight guaranteed!
Original post: Secret of the ‘Starbucks Diet’ and other Diets Like it
