Let’s talk about going to coffee shops while following a keto diet.
Extras in coffee
Being someone who drinks coffee personally, I keep track of different happenings at coffee shops, especially major chains, and I have to say that there’s a lot of sugar and a lot of starches that can be consumed by the average person going to the coffee shop. You have to be careful. You can guarantee that there will be sugar or milk or something that raises the carb content of coffee, whether it’s hot or cold. Caffeine is fine if you’re not sensitive to it.
What kind of coffee can you drink on a keto diet?
Black coffee is the perfect keto coffee because it contains no carbs. Remember, in the method that I teach, you don’t have to add oils and butter and all these different things to make a “keto coffee.” Keto is a metabolic state. Keto is fat-burning. If you like black coffee, that’s a perfect keto thing to do. You might add in some sweetener. Any non-sugar sweetener is okay. It’s better than having sugar, especially if you think of it as a transition to get you off sugar. Black coffee with a sweetener is keto coffee. You might add cream or just a little bit of milk. If you go to a coffee shop, you’re really not in charge of how much milk someone’s putting in if you’re going through the drive-through. What you want to do is ask for black coffee with some room for cream. Then you go and put in your own amount of milk or cream, whatever is available. As long as you’re not having much of the whitener and you’re not pouring a whole lot of milk or cream in your coffee, you’ll be fine.
Can you take milk in your coffee?
It really doesn’t matter which dairy product you have. Even cream that comes in powder form may have one gram of total carbs per serving, so you want to count those as well. I don’t teach adding oils and butter and so you don’t have to send away for fancy keto coffee or even dress-up coffee. You don’t have to add medium-chain triglycerides – that’s something that came out relatively recently in the scheme of things. You don’t have to have these expensive alternatives. Black coffee with a non-sugar sweetener and a little bit of cream or half and half is perfect.
Some coffee shops will have sugar-free sweeteners or flavorings, and those are okay as long as you’re not having 10 squirts. You want to be sure you’re using a reasonable amount of other sweeteners, whiteners, cream, or milk. The same applies to tea. If you have a dairy creamer or a little bit of non-sugar sweetener, that’s going to be fine. I know it may surprise you to hear that you can have milk. As long as it is not very much, it is going to be okay. There are some other alternatives like unsweetened almond milk, which really doesn’t have many carbs in it at all. Of course, look at the label on the side or the back, not the marketed net carbs on the front.
Don’t be deceived by keto-marketed products
If a product label says “Great for a keto diet!”, be very suspicious. Today, there are lots of keto junk foods that are being put out by the processed food industry that I don’t recommend. You want to be very careful about any of these new products that say “Keto” or “Great for keto diets” on them.
Oils are not necessary
When I ask someone how much coffee they have, I ask them how they prepare it and how much they have throughout the day. A tall coffee will have more carbs than a small cup. One person I remember was having “keto coffee” with oils and butter, and I calculated the calories that he was having and it was a lot. He was having it three or four times a day. This was why he was unable to lose weight. If you’re drinking oils and butter you will burn that fat that you’re drinking before you burn your body fat. If you’re trying to lose weight, you don’t want to be drinking oils and having butter and getting distracted by these keto coffee things. The best keto coffee is black coffee, maybe a little bit of cream or milk. A non-sugar sweetener is fine, although I think if you had 20 servings of Splenda, that might not be such a good idea. Within typical use, don’t stress if you’re adding non-sugar sweeteners or some dairy into your coffee.
What about coffee shop food?
You have to avoid the muffins and bagels, things like that. Egg bites or hard-boiled eggs are fine. I know things are changing – times have changed because recently I was traveling out in California and there were pork rinds in a name-brand coffee shop. I’d never seen that before. To have pork rinds in California at a coffee shop … how far the acceptance of keto and low-carb has come! It’s not that unusual to see pork rinds around here in North Carolina where I live, but to have it in California is pretty amazing to see, and that’s a good thing.
Conclusion
You can go to a coffee shop, just watch the total carbs per coffee serving and how many servings you are having a day. As usual, counting those carbs, you want to stay under 20 total carbs per day for the maximal prescription strength keto program. So, no worries, you can have coffee. Thank goodness!
Watch the full video here.