Just wondering out of curiosity.. does any one know if there are Calories in things like Tums, Rolaids ,Maalox, milk of magnesia, Cough syrups, pepto bismal, Cough drops? and I take Advil on a regular basis and it has a sweet coating on it when i taste it like the shell of an M&M almost....
I just realized these are things I use on a semi frequent basis and they all taste sugary... I know they make sugar free cough drops... so I'm guessing maybe so... now if there are calories is it enough to make a difference?
Last edited by mariamherrera; 02-15-2009 at 12:06 PM.
Most probably have some calorie count, though sugar substitutes are now used more often than actual sugar, with the exception of cough drops. I don't worry about the calorie count in otc or prescription meds and vitamins (and I take more meds and supplements than most folks because of several health issues), again with the exception of cough drops.
Most cough drops are, in essense, hard candies. In fact, most don't actually suppress a cough or sooth a throat any better than the average hard candy. Some do have a mild anasthetic (like Sucrets or cloraseptic) that actually numbs, or eucaplyptis and other mints and menthols that have a "cooling" affect that can help distract a person from the scratch, itch or burn of a sore throat, but generally the main relief your average cough drop provides (especially if it's a non-medicinal tasting one like Luden's or Smith Brother's) is in the increased saliva generated by sucking on a hard candy.
When I have a sore throat, I can go through an awful lot of cough drops, so I do pick a sugar free brand and calculate the calories and make them fit into my exchange plan. If it's just one or two cough drops or breath mints, I generally don't count. I use an exchange plan so it would take about 6 to 10 cough drops or life saver candies to make up one of my carbohydrate exchanges, depending on the size of the candies, so I don't count them unless I've consumed enough of them to come out to a half exchange or more (for the day).
Most things aren't going to have any sort of substantial calorie count unless they are some sort syrup.
Advil tablets, and many tablets and capsules, do have sucrose in their coating. But in all honesty, it is such a tiny amount that it's not going to be an issue.
A lot of things like that have a few calories (less than five calories can be labeled as 0), I've seen that a lot of things like that just say 5 calories.
When you think about it, those thick sugary caramel calcium things for women have only 10 calories in them, so they may have a few calories. But even if it's something you take daily (like a multi vitamin) I wouldn't worry about keeping track of it.
I think the question is, how much of these medicines do you normally take? If you find yourself taking these things more than 3 times a day (just about every day), then it might be worth it to check out how many calories you're adding in. Also, if you've got stomach problems and take a half dozen tums a day, that might be important too. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it.
In general, I'd be wondering about eating disorders if I were to hear about someone worrying about the calories in Advil.
Not saying that's an issue here, but it might be worth a self-check.
I would agree with the possible caveat of the new trend now in "nutricuticals," substances that are both food and medicine/supplement. Things like calcium and other vitamin " chews," gum and candy vitamins (not just for kids), and the infamous cough drops.
Calorie counting generally doesn't have to be drastically preceise, and your scale lets you know if you're imprecision is making a big impact on your weight, but if you rely heavily on chews, gums, and candies - whether they have medicinal use or not, you may need to be aware of the calorie content.
Thanks, when I updated my ticker, I thought I'd add a photo, and it's the only one I had handy on this computer right now. It's my hubby and I on our wedding day (of course) six years ago 11/02/2002. So, it's me at my highest weight. I've lost 5 inches in my bust, three inches in my waist - and absolutely nothing in my hips. The hips better start shrinking with me, or I'm going to look pretty ridiculous.
And on the medicines, I see nothing wrong with wanting to know calorie amounts. For instance, my flaxseed capsules contain 15 calories each (all fat) and I take several, several times a day. It's no more trite than counting a Laughing Cow wedge in the total (35 calories for that?).
Yeah, on that side note I've been wanting to mention your new avatar too - loved to finally 'see' you! How tall is your groom???
David is just a hair over 6'2". I'm 5'6" and I had never dated anyone so tall before. Even though I know I'm proportionally fatter than he is, I just feel so small and dainty next to him - gotta love that! In so many (superficial) ways, he was totally not my type, and yet we're so alike in some ways it's scary. We're both outgoing TALKERS. My family says getting a word in edgewise with BOTH of us around is impossible. We also are a bit loud and boisterous and sometimes a bit too blunt. We never mean to offend anyone, but sometimes don't filter well before we speak (I'm convinced hubby has NO filter - but he tells me NO - THIS IS his filter - if so, I hate to think what he's "really thinking" when he says some of the stuff he does).
His hair is a lot grayer now (he teases me that marriage did it), and it's finally reached into his ponytail a bit. I was really teasing him when the gray streaks stopped at the rubber band, because I told him he either had to dye the head auburn, or dye the ponytail gray, because it made the ponytail look like a "clip on." He also has a full beard now. I love the mixture of his natural hair color, bits of orange red and bits of auburn (I tease him that he's "striped" like a cat, because his head hair is auburn, but his facial hair varies from orange to auburn, it's getting darker as he gets older).
Oh, and my hair isn't blonde anymore. My natural color is a bit of a noncolor. Not really blonde, not really brown. There's a touch of red, but not much. Well, I LOVE red hair, not only on hubby, but on myself. So I finally dyed my hair this December after going color-free for that last four or five years. I chose a light to medium auburn with strawberry highlights. I LOVE it (but when I got home after having it done, hubby asked "why do you have stripes"), and here I was thinking they were too subtle for my tastes.
I have never thought about the calories in any of the meds I take, I just checked the cough drops and they are 15 calories each and that adds up. Thanks for putting me on to this.
Totally derailing thread moment, but my husband teases me that marriage made my hair gray! I mean, never mind the fact that my mom was totally gray by 35 and my dad around the same time.
Jademarlene: I completely had to change my favorite cough drops last cold I had. They were full of sugar, which explained why they were so tasty to suck on ;>
calories in medicine?
