You’ve probably seen Beverage Math on just about every weight loss episode of any talk show for the past ten years. An overweight guest stares hopefully at the host as s/he pulls up a power point slide showing that if the overweight guest stops drinking soda (or “pop” or “Coke” if you’re not a nor’easter), s/he will lose ten pounds in a year. I’ve always been envious of those guests and their Soda Math. Stop drinking soda and lose ten pounds?! That would be so easy! Easy for me because I only drink soda a few times a year.

My envy ended when it occurred to me that while I may not have a Soda Math situation going on, I do have Coffee Math: I take my coffee on par with melted coffee ice cream. Whether I add half and half, milk, creamer, sugar, or a combination of them all, each mug for me averages 100 calories apiece. And I drink it like that twice a day. Ready for the Coffee Math?

One pounds = 3,500 calories. So 200 calories of coffee per day x 365 days per year = 20.8 pounds. Twenty pounds in one year simply by switching to black coffee. That would be so easy!

But I love creamy coffee. I don’t want to drink it black.

But twenty pounds? I want to lose twenty pounds.

What if I drank creamatose coffee once a day and black coffee once a day? That’s ten pounds in one year and twenty pounds in two. And I can still start my morning with creamy sweet caffeine.

When we drink our calories, we tend to savor them less than the calories we chew. I’m not saying that we should only ever drink water and water-calorie equivalents (black coffee, unsweetened tea, etc); I’m just saying that we should do our own personal Beverage Math. We all have that one drink we’d rather not give up. So don’t give it up. Cut it in half if you need to, but savor every drop.

“Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”” John 4:13-14