Many of you may be just the same as I who need a cup of coffee in the morning to boost energy for the day. Yes, many research has proved and suggested that the coffee has several health benefits for us, from diabetes prevention to lowering the risk of liver disease. But have you ever wonder how many calories in coffee?

Calories in a Cup of Coffee?

An 8-oz. cup of espresso coffee (black) contains two calories. Do not get too excited knowing that it is only so little calorie in your daily dose of coffee. The one calorie in the 8 oz. of coffee was only meant for the black coffee without sugar nor milk added in, yet. How do you usually drink your coffee? Read on to find out how much calories in your coffee that you have just ordered in the morning.

What is Calorie?

Are you a weight watcher? Does calorie count probably the first thing you look at on a nutrition facts label? If these two sound just like what you are doing on a daily basis, then this blog is for you.

What is calorie? A calorie is a unit of energy or heat that comes from a variety type of foods, such as fats, proteins, carbohydrates or sugars. These are important sources of calories for the human body, which provide us energy to live and function.

Thanks to the advanced technologies these days which you can easily download a calorie counter app on your phone like this famous app - MyFitnessPal(iOS / Android) to help you consistently keep track on the daily calorie intake.

How Many Calories in Coffee?

As mentioned above, express coffee without extras contained only two calories. BUT how do you usually order or make your coffee? Often with milk (skim or full cream) and sugar, right? However, those extras that we added into the cup of our coffee would inevitably add the amount of the calories count.

The below are the amount of 1 tablespoon of those extras that most of us would add into our cup of coffee:

Now you can do the math by yourself to find out how much of calories you have taken in just from the cup of coffee you have ordered just in the morning before.

Not forgetting to mention that for those that took 2 – 3 cups of coffee per day. These people are taking in a huge amount of calories just from coffee alone. Yikes!

To find out more about the calories count and nutrition labels, you can always go to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food Composition Databases to find out all the foods with the calories amount.

Amount of Calories in Various Coffee Beverages

Understand Calories

How many calories should you take in daily? According to U.K. National Health Services, the daily intake of calories amount for an average man and woman are 2500 calories and 2000 calories, respectively.

The calories intake values for an average man and woman varies depending on their body size, age, and levels of physical activities. It is obvious that your body would need more calories intake if you are an athlete who is training for Olympic.

You can always check if your body weight drops within the healthy range by using BMI Healthy Weight Calculator.

Balanced Energy and Calorie

We gained energy every time we eat. It is fundamental that our body needs the energy to help maintain the daily physical activities and organs function. To sustain an ideal body weight, the intake of energy into the body must be equivalent to the physical function energy spent.

For instance, if you consume too much of energy and spend it just as little for a long haul, that is how people gained weight and eventually reach the state of obesity.

Burning Calories

Our body is always burning calories even we are sitting down.

If you are health watcher and want to reduce the calories from your daily diet and coffee is your everyday-must-have, then you can opt for Americano instead your regular latte. Americano, which is just straight espresso shot with a little of boiled water.

Before you wonder how many calories in coffee, you should minimize some extras that you add to your cup of coffee to prevent overtake in calories.

Besides taking in fewer calories to maintain a healthy weight, exercise is equally important to our body, too. Spend 10 minutes on high-intensity interval training every day can help burn calories and keep a healthy metabolism.

Coffee Provides Health Beneficiary to Us

Coffee is loaded with antioxidants and beneficial to our health. According to USDA’s nutrition data based on ground coffee beans, in a single cup of coffee consist of riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5), Manganese (Mn) & Potassium (K), Magnesium (Mg) and Niacin (Vitamin B3).

Many of us do not know how coffee could affect our health by consuming it daily. Coffee indeed can be very beneficial to our body.

In fact, coffee has been linked to lowering Alzheimer’s and deme ntia, Parkinson’s disease risks, liver cancer, and it protects against heart failure. There are proven evidence that by drinking coffee have a risk reduction of cardiovascular di sease, as well as people who drink coffee, would have 20% lower risk of stroke.

Conclusion

You now have a clearer understanding towards how many calories in coffee, and how much of calories you should be taking in each day, you should start to maintain your everyday healthy balanced diet and have enough amount of exercise.

Although coffee does provide health beneficiary to us you should not consume coffee in a large quantity; it may defeat the purpose of the health benefits that provided by the coffee.

Remember, moderation is the key to a healthy diet. The general idea is to have a cup a day, and that is the sweet spot for the majority of people. Next write up will be "Is Coffee Fattening? (Debunked! Coffee Help With Weight Lost Instead)", or read more here. Stay tuned!.