9 Ways to Avoid Coffee Shop Calories

1. Classify Pastries as Treats, Not Breakfast

A pastry as an occasional treat is fine, but as breakfast, it’s disastrous. Not only will the simple carbohydrates and high sugar leave you drooping and hungry an hour later, but you get little to no nutritional benefit from the fat and calories. If you must eat on the run at your coffee shop, order a wholemeal bagel.

2. Classify Specialty Coffee Drinks as Dessert

Fancy-flavoured, whipped cream, hard-to-pronounce coffee drinks can be worse for you than a big slice of cake. If you must have a fancy coffee drink, treat it like a banana split or a cake and indulge in it only rarely.

3. Choose Biscotti

These twice-baked Italian delicacies are perfect for dunking; at Starbucks they carry just 110kcal and 5g of fat.

4. Stick to Plain Coffee

To avoid the large amounts of trans fats found in specialty coffee, order black coffee and ad in healthy amounts of skim milk, sugar or a sugar substitute and, if you wish, top with separate flavourings such as ground chocolate or cinnamon.

5. Have Only Certain Specialty Drinks

If you like specialty coffee, choose something made with milk, like cappuccino or a latte. And ask that they be made with skim milk. You’ll get a good amount of calcium along with the warmth and caffeine, but without the saturated fat.

6. Skip on the Whipped Cream

You’ll instantly save 100kcal and 20g of fat just by avoiding the extra, unnecessary whipped cream.

7. Share a Muffin with a Friend

As with a pastry, think ‘treat’ rather than breakfast. Muffins at coffee shops can be loaded with fat so instead of eating a whole, oversized treat, share it with someone else.

8. Try Flavoured Bagels

If you’re ordering blueberry, cinnamon and raisin or some other tasty flavour, you won’t need the extra cream cheese, butter or other spreads.

9. Pick Low-Fat Options

Many coffee shops and bakeries do offer low-fat versions of their tasty treats. This is still a long way from healthy food and should only be eaten on occasion but it’s a one step closer to healthy.