Is your coffee making you fat?

When do you have your coffee? Just before breakfast? One the way to work? With breakfast?

A increasingly common eating pattern I am noticing with my clients is the propensity to have a milk based coffee such as a Latte or Flat White early in the morning, only to follow it an hour or so later with breakfast. Remember, the body is programmed to digest food with reasonable time intervals between eating occasions, meaning if you have a coffee that is milk based (or with added syrup, cream) you are effectively having a breakfast, albeit a small one. Rather than dragging your feeding occasions out by sipping on milk coffee all day or doubling your breakfast eating occasions in the morning, try and allow 2-3 hours in between your meal times with no calories going in. This mans that plain black coffee, tea or green tea are fine but milk based drinks tells the body you are eating again, which releases digestion hormones continually, which is not ideal for optimal fat burning.