Living a Low Carb Life in a Starbucks World

Hello my name is Liz and I am a coffee addict.  Living in the upper Mid-West, we have a few options for coffee shops (not as many as let's say, in CA).  Personally, I am partial to Starbucks, it is not too sweet and just enough bitterness to make me aware that I am drinking coffee. 

When I started my low carb life style I had nightmares about not being able to drink Starbucks anymore.  I even cut it out completely for about 3-5 weeks and man was that ROUGH!  So I started searching on Pinterest, I searched "low carb coffee," "low sugar Starbucks," and "low carb Starbucks."  I found some great ideas on how to make my favorite drink, low carb. 

My drink of choice is an iced decaf caramel macchiato, it consists of milk, vanilla flavored syrup, espresso and caramel drizzle.  I made the changes to my drink slowly, first I started by changing my syrup to sugar free syrup.  I had a lot of annoyance when I would ask for sugar free syrup, the baristas would always ask if I wanted skim milk.  NO!!!!!!!!!!! I learned through my researching that the lower the fat content in milk, the more sugar is added to it.  Instead, I would always just ask for 2% milk.    Once I got used to the sugar free syrup ( which honestly wasn't too bad) I then changed my milk.  I changed my milk to whole milk, which I enjoy better than even the 2%, the old adage is correct, fat just tastes better. 

Pictured above is me with my Sister and Nephew in CA, notice the drink in my hand.

Another favorite drink of mine is an iced green tea latte with raspberry syrup, to make this drink low carb just ask for sugar free syrup and again whole milk.

The drink above is the iced green tea latte, also my dog Freyja's treat (her favorite reason going to Starbucks).

I am going to drop a truth bomb on you, I have a Starbucks contact and I may or may not be related to said contact, lets call this contact Drew.  So one day, I went into the store and started ordering my new low carb drink.  Drew asked why I was ordering whole milk, instead Drew told me to order Breve.  Breve is just a fancy way of saying half and half.  This is not exactly my favorite, it takes away from the coffee flavor, but it's still pretty tasty.  I also want to add it does cost $.65  extra to use this milk substitute.

I  want to make sure that everyone knows that your whole life doesn't have to change because of your diet, instead you just have to find substitutions. 


Happy Sipping!!!!