Are you concerned about your health?  What about your weight?  Trying to maintain it?  Lose a pound or two?  Do you have more than that to lose?  (Public confessions not necessary here.)  If so, you may want to read further.

I recently was forwarded excerpts of an article from Men’s Health magazine titled, “Eat This, Not That: America’s Unhealthiest Drinks Exposed.“

It’s about some of the worst drinks that we consume here in America.

The four that were highlighted for me were:

• Glaceau Vitamin Water
• Arizona Kiwi Strawberry
• Pina Colada
• Baskin Robbin’s Large Heath Bar Shake

Have you ever had any of those?

If so, do you have any idea what’s in them from a nutritional perspective?

How about just the basics… Calories, Sugar, and Fat?

For comparison, let's take a moment to look at the "nutrition" in a typical can of soda.  The typical can of cola has about 150 Calories, 40g of Sugar, and no Fat. How much is 40g of Sugar?  Let me give you a mental image: that’s 10 teaspoons full of sugar in a can!  For a better visual, the next time you make up some sweet tea, try adding 10 teaspoons of sugar.  Just seeing that much sugar dropped in is often enough to make someone swear off soda for at least a few days!

With that brief introduction, here’s what the article had to say about these four drinks:

Worst “Healthy” Drink Glaceau VitaminWater (any flavor; 20 oz bottle)

130 calories , 33 grams sugar

Vitamins and water might sound like the ultimate nutritional tag team, but what the label doesn’t say is that a bottle of this stuff carries nearly as much sugar and calories as a can of Coke. Makes sense, though, since this so-called functional beverage is produced by our often-sugar-crazy friends at The Coca-Cola Company.

Worst Juice Imposter Arizona Kiwi Strawberry (23.5 oz can)

360 calories , 84 g of sugar

These hulking calorie cannons (5 percent juice, 95 percent sugar water) are sold at gas stations and convenience stores across America for the low, low price of 99 cents, making this quite possibly the cheapest source of empty calories in the country.

Worst Smoothie Jamba Juice Peanut Butter Moo’d Power Smoothie (30 oz)

1,170 calories , 169 g sugars , 30 g fat

Jamba Juice calls it a smoothie; we call it a milkshake, with more sugar than an entire bag of chocolate chips. (Note: We’re pretty sure this is the drink Hollywood actors rely on when looking to put on 20 pounds for the role as a heavy!)

Worst Summer Cocktail Pina Colada

625 calories , 75 g sugars

Made from a blend of sickly-sweet pineapple juice and fat-riddled coconut milk, pina coladas may be this summer’s biggest beach-body saboteurs. In fact, the only redeeming part of this drink is the garnish — that lonely chunk of pineapple hanging from the rim. Try a lime daiquiri or a mojito instead and save up to 400 calories a drink.

The Unhealthiest Drink in America Baskin Robbin’s Large Heath Bar Shake (32 oz)

2,310 calories, 266 g sugar , 108 g fat (64 g saturated)

Let’s look at America’s Worst Drink in numbers:

73: Number of ingredients that go into this milkshake.

66: Number of teaspoons of sugar this drink contains.

11: Number of Heath Bars you would have to eat to equal the number of calories found in one Baskin Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake.

8-12: Average number of minutes it takes to consume this drink.

240: Number of minutes you’d need to spend on a treadmill burning it off, running at a moderate pace.

Do I need to detail why these have no business being in your diet if you’re concerned about gaining weight? They don’t fit into Weight Watchers, Take Shape for Life, Atkins, South Beach, and certainly not the wellness program my doctor said was the "perfect program": HealthPointe!

Makes me want to drink a bottle of filtered water and go for a walk just reading those figures!