I remember the first time I saw excessive drinking of diet soda. See, we mostly drank water in my parents' home, so I got used to that. One day, during lunch at a a friend's who was always on a diet, I noticed she was drinking diet Coke (or Pepsi, I can't really remember). Responding to my inquiry, she explained that she'd rather spend the calories allotted to her in her diet on food rather than on drink.

Well, today I've read about this fascinating study that found that liquids make up 22% of calories in the average American's diet. Meaning that while many Americans only count calories from food, in fact, many of their daily calories are comprised of drinks -- 22% of them.

Apparently, Americans drink on average 38 ounces of water (zero calories), followed by 17.5 ounce sugary soft drinks, 7.5 ounces of milk and 8.9 ounces of coffee daily. 6.4% of Americans' diet is made up of soft drinks, while the percentage is higher for teenagers.

This trend might be declining as health and wellness awareness have increased in the past decade. This trend along with some schools removing vending machines containing full sugar soft drinks also caused companies such as PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE:PEP) and Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:KO) to release healthier products.

There have been many controversies concerning sweeteners so I'm not sure that having so much artificial sweeteners such as aspartame or saccharin in one's diet is that healthy either. Regardless, it seems that my friend was right: Don't forget to count your drinks when dieting. Alas, this goes for beer and martinis as well...