A friend recently announced to me that as part of her diet, she was cutting out coffee. I know she's as much a coffee fiend as I am, so I asked her why. After all, when I'm trying to lose weight, I usually switch to skim milk and Splenda in my cup of joe.

She said her doctor had told her that coffee is very acidic, and the acid that the body can't turn into alkaline, it turns into fat. After all the hype I've heard over the past few years of the health benefits of coffee [1] I was disappointed to hear that the pendulum might again be swinging the other way, and my favorite habit will again turn into a vice to be vilified.

I decided to do some investigation about the connection between coffee and weight gain.

I couldn't find any research that supported the specifics of the acid in coffee causing weight gain, but it turns out, there is some truth to the notion that coffee can make you fat. One article [2] I read noted that heavy coffee drinking can cause adrenal fatigue and hypoglycemia, which can lead to weight gain, exhaustion and thyroid problems.

In another article [3] an interview with noted dermatologist and nutrition expert Nicholas Perricone, M.D. said that coffee raises the levels of cortisol, a stress-related hormone, which in turn can raise your blood sugar levels, prompting the body to start converting excess calories into fat. Perricone says that switching from coffee to tea can cause you to lose up to eight pounds in six weeks, even with no other changes in diet or exercise habits.

Of course, part of the problem might not be with coffee itself, but how you drink it. After all, coffee doesn't contain any calories or fat, but if you're like me, you'll be adding a splash of milk or half-and-half, and a spoonful or two of sugar or sweetener. On weekends it's hard for me to resist a foamy latte or a refreshing frozen coffee drink. It's easy to forget that all of those extras add up... and add on the pounds.

I checked in with my friend to see how her new coffee-free life was going. She traded in her Starbucks cards for jumbo packs of green tea, and a week after quitting cold turkey, she's already lost a little weight. Even better, she sleeps better and finds that it's easier to wake up in the mornings.

My friend (and the research I came across) have me convinced: I'm going to try to kick my own coffee habit, at least for a month or so. Who knows, maybe I'll discover I love tea just as much!

Image courtesy Ahmed Rabea [4].