The strong, thick steam swirls up from your cup and around your nose; immediately you are engulfed in the aroma of hot, seasonal Starbucks lattes that only come around once a year. Living in State College, we Collegiettes understand the need for comforting drinks.
Amidst stressful exams, the bone chilling Penn State weather, and the sole fact that Starbucks is just amazing, we deserve a nice treat every now and then.
But when you’re trying to keep your figure in check, enjoying a creamy, whipped cream laden Starbucks drink is only going to add to that extra bulge hanging over your jeans. Here are a few tips to minimize the amount of calories, fat and sugar in your cup.
• Order your lattes, hot chocolates, coffees and mochas with skim milk. In a 12oz Pumpkin Spice Latte, switching from whole milk to skim milk reduces the calorie content from 330 to 260 calories, and eliminates 8 grams of fat.
• Skip the whipped cream. As tempting as it is to stick your finger into the delicious topping, whipped cream adds 70 calories and 7 grams of fat to your drink.
• If you’re going to add flavored syrup, opt for the sugar free syrup. The sugar free kind adds zero calories to your drink while the regular syrup adds 20 calories per pump.
• Keep your drink small and simple. The bigger the cup and the more complicated the name of the drink, the more calories you are most likely consuming.
• Take it skinny, not stupendous. By ordering a skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte as opposed to a regular one, it will automatically be made with skim milk, sugar free syrup and no whipped cream.
Let me save you the trouble of counting calories and looking up nutrition information. Here are five comforting Starbucks drinks that are around 200 calories or less when you order a 12oz cup, skim milk and no whipped cream:
• Pumpkin Spice Latte- 200 calories, 0g of fat
• Hot Chocolate- 190 calories, 2g of fat
• Peppermint Mocha- 210 calories, 2g of fat
• Cinnamon Dolce Latte- 160 calories, 0g of fat
• Chai Tea Latte- 150 calories, 0g of fat
With these tips you’ll have no reason to pack on the pounds because of a Starbucks run. Just be careful to limit how many comfort drinks you consume, any more than one or two per week could mean trouble. Save yourself calories and LionCash by resisting the urge to buy multiple lattes, call up the cutie from English and have him warm you up instead. Enjoy the cold weather my friends.