Top 5 Diet Drinks Are Easier to Find and Cheaper Than You Might Think

When it comes to weight loss drinks, it's easy to overlook the obvious. The term "weight loss drink" can conjure up images of special, premixed diet aids that promise rapid weight loss. And if you order now, you'll be uber thin by summer!

The good news is that there are fabulous fluids that we have access to every day to expedite weight loss and help keep our bodies healthy. Because it's always nice to have choices, we will review the top five weight loss drinks that fall into this category:

1.Water

Instead of cracking open your wallet for expensive "weight loss" drinks, you have the option of turning on your kitchen faucet or cracking open your favorite bottled water. There are a couple of different approaches to using water specifically as a weight loss drink:

a.
Drink water before meals. From personal experience, drinking a glass of water just before a meal is a great appetite deterrent. It's something a health professional recommended to me, and it really can work if you stick with it. Of course, you don't want to drink 10 glasses before every meal or you may never eat again. But an 8-ounze shot of H2O just before sitting down to eat can be an effective yet healthy appetite supressant.

b.
Substitute with water. In the middle of a mundane afternoon, instead of reaching for your favorite carbonated soft drink, treat yourself to a sparkling, clear water cocktail instead. It's a much better thirst quencher, and you'll avoid hundreds of useless carbonated calories each time you do.

Drinking more water also offers the built-in health benefit of cleansing our systems, so we should be drinking 4-8 glasses of water a day anyway. Simply time your water consumption to coincide with meals.

Luckily, one of the best weight loss drinks comes with a price tag that's very easy to swallow.

2.Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice

All of my life people have told me, "You should drink ruby red grapefruit juice if you want to lose weight." My reaction for many years was to say, "Okay" very politely, then think to myself "Yeah right. Like that'll ever happen."

In the first place, I didn't care a whole lot for the flavor of grapefruit. Secondly, how was I supposed to believe that there's some magical ingredient in ruby red grapefruit that mysteriously helps people get thin?

To address the first concern, there's something to be said for the unique flavor of ruby red grapefruit juice. It's almost like somebody toned the grapefruity flavor down and added an element of sweetness. It's smoother and far more appealing than regular grapefruit, so it's much easier to drink and enjoy. Plus, it has a totally unique flavor which, if you're lucky, can become mildly addictive.

Regarding the concern about the "magic" ingredient, Dee Wilson of dietivity.com points out there really is such a thing in ruby red. "Pectin, a soluble fiber, in the ruby red grapefruit helps reduce calories to be stored as fat by improving the body's ability to metabolize sugar. In addition, pectin curbs your appetite to eat less."

Amazing. Not only does ruby red tackle breaking down fat, it also helps suppress appetite. The really good news here is that a bottle of ruby red grapefruit juice can be found on most grocery store shelves for about $4 to get 64 ounces.

Smaller, 16- and 20-ounce servings can be found in most convenience stores with a price of around $2.

Thus it's a very accessible product, and the cost is relatively easy to digest.

3.Green Tea

After lengthy research, it appears as though green tea does have the potential to help with weight loss, however, there are details to be considered. Rumblings about the weight loss effectiveness of green tea have been brewing for a couple of years. Some say it works, others admit that it works but question how much green tea a person needs to drink to see results.

Green tea as a weight loss drink can be viewed from three perspectives:

a. Appetite supressant: Various reports point out that green tea is an effective appetite supressant, and by drinking it just before each meal, it can cause the dieter to eat less food.

b.
Fat burning: According to David Tolson of bulknutrition.com, "Green tea has been demonstrated to be as or more effective than some prescription weight loss medications, and may rival the ECA stack in terms of fat loss."

On the other hand, a headline by Miranda Hitti of WebMD Health News states, "Green Tea May Ward Off Weight Gain." The subtitle points out, "But You'd Have to Drink a Lot of Tea to Match Preliminary Lab Tests in Mice."

c.
Un-risky business: Since many weight loss programs and medications include caffiene and other stimulants, green tea is a healthy choice. Tolson notes, "In addition, green tea is one of the few weight loss medications that has not been associated with negative effects on the cardiovascular system (such as increased heart rate and blood pressure) or CNS side effects (such as overstimulation and irritability)."

Green tea comes in many different forms: Tea bags, powder, sweetened, unsweetened and bottled. Prices range from about $2 for an individual serving in a convenience store to $8 for a gallon bottle from a grocery store.

4.Vegetable Juice

Another relatively inexpensive way to pursue additional weight loss is to veg-out.

"Drinking at least one glass of low sodium vegetable juice every day may help overweight dieters lose more weight," explains Megan Rauscher of www.reuters.com. She quotes study investigator Dr. Carl L. Keen as saying that vegetable juice can help squelch a dieter's appetite. "There is also a long-term belief that a high fruit and vegetable diet is associated with lower body weight," said Keen.

Prepared vegetable juices such as V-8 can be purchased almost anywhere, and those wishing to produce their own veggie drinks can "juice it up" by investing in a home juicer. Throwing your healthy veggies into a juicer also eliminates the need to dress up broccoli, beans and carrots to make them more palatable at mealtime.

And aside from its weight loss benefits, don't forget, vegetable juice offers many minerals, vitamins and antioxidants.

A 64-ounce bottle of vegetable juice can be found in most grocery stores for around $4 or $5, and single servings are sold in most convenience stores for around $2.

5.Milk

Got info on milk? As a possible weight loss drink, yes we do.

My grandmother used to push me to drink more milk when I started to put on weight at age 13, and I remember wondering why she thought something as heavy as milk would make me lighter.
As it turns out, she may have been on to something.

Research indicates that milk can serve two important weight-loss functions: It can help burn calories, and it can help dieters who have lost weight keep it off.

This theory is supported by "Drinking Milk May Help Dieters Maintain Weight Loss" in the Journal of Nutrition " which states, "Including milk and other milk products as part of a healthy weight management plan may help women keep off the weight they've lost."

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Nutrition, "Researchers found that higher calcium intakes, mostly from milk and other milk products and not supplements, was linked to less weight gain 18 months after a significant weight loss."

Another expert who sees fat-burning benefits to milk consumption is Michael Zemel, PhD, director of the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who has conducted extensive studies on the effects of dairy consumption when dieting. He writes, "Notably, dairy sources of calcium exert markedly greater effectsin attenuating weight and fat gain and accelerating fat loss," in his Symposium: Dairy Product Components and Weight Regulation.

Generally speaking, weight loss drinks are more accessible that we may think. So many kinds of commercial "weight loss drinks" promise extreme results these days, that it can be tricky wade through them and dive into the right choice.

But if you really think about it, perhaps there's no need to wade at all.

Note - Prior to pursuing any dieting effort, it's always best to check with your doctor.

Dee Wilson, Ruby Red Grapefruit Diet, http://www.dietivity.com/ruby-red-grapefruit-diet/January 03, 2008

David Tolson, Green Tea, http://www.bulknutrition.com/i17_Green_Tea_Extract.html

Megan Rauscher, Vegetable Juice May Help With Weight Loss, http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE53L60S20090422?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Journal of Nutrition, Drinking Milk May Help Dieters Maintain Weight Loss,
http://www.whymilk.com/healthy_weight_article/milk_help_weight_loss

Michael B. Zemel, PhD, Symposium: Dairy Product Components and Weight Regulation, http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/133/1/252S.pdf