My constant battle with my weight re-kindles itself with a vengeance periodically. The triggers are predictable things like, pants that barley fit but use to fit, the scale, a good look in the mirror after a shower and photographs, Last weekend I got a quadruple whammy. On Monday I found myself full of the drive to change, that seems to rear its head three or four times a year. In regards to my overall health, when I’m good I’m great but when I’m bad I’m atrocious and that may be an understatement.

In the past I have exercised like a maniac for long enough of a stretch, on a regular basis, to warrant some kind of result. And I suppose there was a result, I lost about an inch off of my waist and I did feel better but the effort expended for the result achieved was a big disappointment. I was convinced that the more I exercised, the more I could eat and still loose unwanted weight. I exercised so much that I was always hounded by a ravenous hunger and believe me it was unrelenting. I was somewhat conscious about what I ate but never how much. Recently, I began to think about the little things I consumed in a day like coffee. I share a passion with a lot of my fellow Canadians, I love a large double, double in the morning and often find myself back for another later in the day. In fact I love coffee. When I was working for a past employer I would go the whole day without eating but consume 6 to 10 cups of coffee while in the office, all of them double, double or even triple, triple. I was oblivious as to the calories this represented in my diet. I mean it’s just coffee, right? Today I dug a bit deeper and found this out:

Sugar - In one level teaspoon, 16 calories and 4 grams of carbohydrate. One rounded is 1 1/2 tsp and 24 calories with 6 grams of carbohydrate. Depends on how you measure one teaspoon i.e. measuring spoon or silverware spoon

One tablespoon of half-and-half cream has 20 calories.

Using the information above and assuming that a double, double coffee contains 2 rounded teaspoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of half-and-half cream, I consume about 90 calories with every cup of Joe I scarf down. I have watched them make my coffee at Tim’s and I know that the above figures are conservative. It’s probably a safe bet to say 100 calories per cup. At 2 cups per day that would total 1400 calories per week on coffee alone. Geesh, who would have guessed, and to think that coffee was never on my radar when I was "watching" what I was eating.

So next time your getting your Tim’s in the morning, remember that the coffee your drinking may be doing more that just helping you wake up.