It’s a fat making combination.
It’s impossible to avoid sugar nowadays and whether it’s in your food or in your drink, it’s hard to get away from it. Around 16% of our total energy intake comes from sugar but the largest source of its income is from sugary drinks.
However, a sugary drink is just so hard to resist, especially when the weather is good and you’ve gathered a bit of a thirst after a day at work.
You think to yourself, ‘as long as the meal is healthy, I’m allowed this little cheat of a sugary drink’ but that is sadly not the case.
According to a study by BMC Nutrition, mixing a sugar sweetened drink with a protein rich meal can actually override the goodness of the meal.
The mixture affects our metabolism and builds up fat and it limits the amount of protein from the meal that helps increase your metabolism.
Researchers wanted to see what happened to our bodies when humans mixed a lovely steak dinner with a sugary drink.
Their volunteers spent a whole day in a metabolic chamber where their body was measured in different ways such as how the body utilises food nutrients, how many grams of fat, protein and carbohydrates are being used, and how many calories are being burned.
They ate the exact same types of food for the whole day and results showed that drinking this type of beverage with a protein-rich meal decreased fat use by 40%.
In short, the body stores fat from sugary drinks instead of burning it so next time you’re opting for a steak dinner, have a pint of milk or water with it.
