What Juice is Okay After WLS??
I get asked all the time…
What juice is okay to drink? I always like juice in the morning!
For years this has been a hard question to answer.
Every juice they make is LOADED in sugar and because it’s sugar in a liquid form, it spikes blood sugars very quickly. By and large, juice is a poor choice for weight-loss.
Some juices will say “low sugar” or “no sugar added” and still contain high amounts of sugar. Bottles that have very healthy looking packaging can seem like a good idea until you look more closely at the label! Yikes!
For any beverage (excluding protein shakes) I like to follow the rule of the 3 C’s. For your best choice in a beverage check that the drink is:
non-carbonated
not caffeinated
under 15 calories for 8 ounces
Diet Cranberry Juice is one of the juices that has been on the market and a great choice for a juice that fits the 3 C’s. For the longest time, this has been the extent of it.
Here’s the great news. There are so many more options on the market than there used to be! The photo below is my current favorite “Diet Cran-Pineapple.”
If you tend to prefer orange juice more, you can try Crystal Light® Orange Sunrise or Mio Electrolytes® Orange flavor.
If you are more of an apple juice fan you can try the Great Value® Apple Drink Mix.
When in doubt, take a quick look at the label of whatever you’re drinking and make sure it’s under 15 calories for 8 ounces, not caffeinated and not carbonated! I recommend the Cran-Pineapple!
The fake sugars are probably not very healthy for us. How do you feel about them being added to juice?
Hi Kellie! Fantastic question. Sweeteners are one of the most difficult areas of nutrition! We know that pure sugar is so hard on the body and especially for WLS patients. In my personal life, I chose Stevia/Truvia and Swerve to the best of my abilities – the more natural sweeteners. Juice is so difficult because of the sugar content and there is no juice I recommend to my patients. This juice does use Sucralose (AKA Splenda) and is listed very low in the list of ingredients (ingredients are listed first to last in order of highest to lowest used in the food). It’s 4th from the last ingredient in this case. Sweetener is such a controversial topic I encourage my patients to do their research and make this decision based on their personal comfort level. For some, sugar has taken such a hold on their life that using some foods with small amounts of sweeteners aids them in getting off high amounts of sugar and is usually a transition on their road to getting rid of sweets altogether.
I’m not as familiar with “juices” that use the naturally sweeteners – my rule of thumb is to keep calories less than 15 for 8 ounces and some of the natural sweetener juices still have 40-50 calories per glass. Let me know if you find something you like that fits this category! Thanks for your comment!