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| *Courtesy pfitblog |
"When I was young, my mom and dad played in a band. As a result, they were asked to write jingles for various companies. One of the most memorable jingles was for a national Dunkin’ Donuts ad campaign.
I remember walking through the mall, before the satellite radio days, and hearing my dad sing “when I wake up in the morning, and my tummy says ooo! …dip it in your coffee” over the mall speakers. Even back in the 70s, Dunkin Donuts was known for its coffee – and as coffee shop menus keep growing, so does our waistline.
Unfortunately, it’s easy for coffee lovers to rack up hidden calories – especially at coffee shops. Of course, coffee alone is not the culprit. It’s all the extras that can ruin a diet. We add a little cream, a dash of flavor, a couple of packets of sweetener and some whipped cream – and before you know it, our harmless coffee is now a lethal fat-making weapon.
Let’s look at Duncan Donuts for a moment. A standard black coffee is only 5 calories, so it’s difficult to comprehend how we can doctor it up so much that our 5 calorie coffee can end up being 120 calories when we are done with it – and that doesn’t include the extra syrups, whip cream, and all that fancy shmancy coffee-house jazz.
The fact is, when you trade your standard coffee for a flavored latte, you trade your drink for as many calories as a meal. If you are like me, you’d rather learn to drink smart and eat more!
8 Ways to Save Coffee Calories:
1. Use flavored coffee. Trade high-calorie flavored syrups and creamers for delicious flavored gourmet coffee.2. Cut the cream. If you can’t do without cream, cut it with skim or whole milk to save calories.
3. Lighten Up. It’s difficult for a person who likes a little coffee with their cream, to become a person who drinks coffee black. However, if you slowly wean yourself of heavy creamer, your taste buds will have time to adjust.
4. Make it mild. Stronger coffees require more cream to soften the intensity of the bitter flavor. If
you go a little more mild, you may be able to go mild on your creamer too.
5. Pick only one – coffee or coffee cake. It’s hard to pass up the muffins and coffee cakes when you order your starbucks, but the reality is – that coffee you are ordering IS your treat. Don’t double your mistake by ordering two high-calorie treats.
6. Go small. Many times we order a large coffee just because it’s only a few cents more. Then we find ourselves gulping down the last few cold sips just because we don’t want to waste what’s left. Order small coffees for a small waistline.
7. Skip it. I don’t know about you, but meeting a friend at a coffee shop is the go-to thing to do. Half the time I really don’t even want a coffee. Yet, you bet your socks I’ll order one – just because. The last time I was tempted, I ended up ordering an unsweetened tea instead. It was refreshing and yummy and I didn’t leave with regret and the need to do 3 extra miles of cardio to erase one drink.
8. Limit the high-calorie treats to once a week. Just because it has coffee in it, doesn’t mean you should have it every day like your daily morning coffee. Treat fancy frappuccinos as if it’s actually a treat. Fancy coffees can have as much calories in an ice cream – and if you are dieting, you shouldn’t have ice cream every day either."
Dunkin Donuts Calorie Chart
| COFFEE | Calories |
| Espresso | 0 |
| Coffee | 5 |
| Coffee with Splenda | 15 |
| Coffee with Skim Milk | 15 |
| Coffee with Skim Milk and Splenda | 25 |
| Coffee with Milk | 25 |
| Coffee with Sugar | 60 |
| Coffee with Cream | 60 |
| Coffee with Skim Milk and Sugar | 70 |
| Coffee with Milk and Sugar | 80 |
| Cappuccino | 80 |
| Mocha Coffee | 110 |
| Coffee with Cream and Sugar | 120 |
| Latte | 120 |
| Cappuccino with Sugar | 140 |
| Mocha Coffee with Cream | 170 |
| Mocha Swirl Latte | 220 |
| Dunkaccino | 230 |
| Vanilla Chai | 330 |
*Thanks to my friend Marc for sending me this article!
