What to Order at Starbucks When Trying to Lose Weight

Wondering what to order at Starbucks when trying to lose weight? Find low carb, low sugar, and keto-friendly coffee drinks, teas, breakfasts, and snacks.

What to order at Starbucks when trying to lose weight

UPDATED 9/2024

As an RD specializing in weight management, it’s an important part of my job to frequent places like Starbucks so I can properly advise my clients as to the healthier available options. Such a hardship, right? 🙂  All kidding aside, I am asked all the time about what to order at Starbucks when trying to lose weight. So, I’ve created a cheat sheet for the better-for-you items available at your local Starbucks.

It’s not just for coffee. Whenever I suggest Starbucks as a fast food alternative, people generally don’t realize that you can purchase a quick and healthy breakfast, lunch, snack, or even a light dinner there and their locations are certainly plentiful. While new items are constantly introduced, the following are my current picks when ordering food at Starbucks.

High Protein Breakfast at Starbucks

The 3 best high protein breakfast options at Starbucks:

Spinach, Feta & Cage Free Egg White Breakfast Wrap– with 290 calories and 20 grams of protein, it’s filled with whole grains and veggies. If I’m running around at lunchtime, or traveling for work, this is my preferred grab-and-go meal, and for lunch, you cannot beat the price! My family is addicted! PRO TIP: in the customize tab on the app you can choose a sriracha packet for a spicy kick.

Reduced-Fat Turkey Bacon & Cage Free Egg White Breakfast Sandwich– with cage-free egg whites, reduced-fat turkey bacon, reduced-fat white cheddar cheese, and an organic wheat English muffin, it’s a satisfying breakfast for 230 calories and 17g of protein. Enjoy a tall nonfat latte without added sweeteners to round out the meal and boost protein over 20 grams.

Starbucks Breakfast Sandwiches

Sous Vide Egg Bites: Egg White & Red Pepper Bites are made with egg whites prepared using the French “sous vide” technique with Monterrey jack cheese, spinach, and roasted peppers. Containing only 170 calories and 12 grams of protein they are a great way to start the morning. Add a tall nonfat latte to complete the meal (without added sweetener or with a no-calorie packet or sugar free vanilla syrup)

Old standby:

Classic Whole Grain Oatmeal: A combo of steel-cut and rolled oats with separate packets of dried fruit, a nut medley and brown sugar, also available with blueberries and agave syrup. While I love oatmeal, I try to make sure to consume at least 20 grams of protein at breakfast. If carbs are your thing, this is a much better choice than a pastry or bagel. You can always use ½ of the dried fruit and nuts and skip the brown sugar or enjoy the blueberries without the agave. This will keep the calories in check and then you can add a tall nonfat latte (skinny or unsweetened) to add 10 extra grams of protein. Note: the plain oatmeal contains 160 calories and 5 grams of protein, toppings are additional, about 100 calories each.

For a nutritious and reasonable lunch:

Starbucks Protein Box

Vegetarian choice:
Eggs & Cheese Protein Box– packs 22 grams of protein with 460 calories. You’ll enjoy 2 cage-free hardboiled eggs, sliced apples, grapes and white cheddar cheese with multigrain muesli bread and a packet of honey peanut butter. It’s like a dreamy bento box. Kids love this one too!

Lower Carb, Lower Calorie, Lower Sugar Starbucks Drinks:

Update on Sugar Free Drinks at Starbucks:

*As of 2022, the only sugar free syrup available is sugar free vanilla. Starbucks no longer offers sugar free cinnamon dolce or sugar free mocha syrups.*

If you love flavored coffee but not sugar, your best bet is the evergreen gold standard Iced Skinny Vanilla Latte made with espresso, nonfat milk, sugar-free vanilla syrup, and ice for only 80 calories in 16 ounces. 

The sugar free mocha option is gone, however, you can still lighten up a 350 calorie grande Cafe Mocha by decreasing the number of pumps of mocha sauce, choosing skim or almond milk, and leaving out the whipped cream or asking for light whip. 

How to decrease sugar in Starbucks seasonal drinks:

Starbucks lower sugar apple crisp shaken oatmilk espresso

Iced Shaken Apple Crisp Oatmilk Espresso: Decrease apple brown sugar syrup to 1 pump, add 2 pumps sugar free vanilla syrup. Substitute almond milk for oat milk, and add cinnamon.

Pumpkin Spice Latte: swap for nonfat milk or almond milk, 1 pump of pumpkin sauce, 1 no-calorie sweetener packet, extra pumpkin topping (spices), extra cinnamon, no whip or light whip

Low sugar, lower calorie Macchiatos! 

Similar to the cold brew with cold foam, the macchiato has more milk vs foam. To keep the sugars lower, order a nonfat (or almond milk) iced or hot sugar-free vanilla macchiato. 

Customize your macchiato to include ANY seasonal flavor by ordering an Almondmilk Macchiato with 1 pump of any seasonal syrup like pumpkin spice, apple brown sugar, peppermint, or mocha.  I don’t have an exact calorie count on that but it’s likely between 100 and 150 and the almondmilk adds a neat creaminess.

Starbucks Cold Brew

For die-hard pure at heart coffee drinkers, try the Cold Brew for only 5 calories with a splash of the milk of your choice. That’s likely the lowest calorie choice at Starbucks that still allows you to get your caffeine fix as needed.

Starbucks recently added cold foam to the cold brew for a creamy delight with very few calories and sugar!

The Cold Brew with Cold Foam packs only 35 calories for a 16oz grande with 7g of carbs/sugars. 

If you want to try one of the flavors, the Irish Cream Cold Brew with Cold Foam has only 110 calories and 11 g carbs for a tall. Pretty doable if you want to order a menu item as-is without modifications.

Iced Shaken Espresso (grande) clocks 100 calories for 16 ounces using 2% milk and 4 pumps of classic syrup. To lower it even more, swap some of the classic syrup for sugar free vanilla syrup or for 1-2 stevia packets. Each pump contains approximately 5 grams of sugar and 20 calories. 

Iced sugar free Cinnamon Dolce Cloud Macchiato -when they had SF cinnamon dolce 🙁

For my dairy-free friends, Starbucks has offered soymilk for quite some time but recently added almond milk and coconut milk. These do have some added sugar and some fat from the almonds and coconut, but the calories are reasonable and they add a creamier texture than skim milk (but significantly less protein). It’s a trade-off, make your decision based on your personal goals.

For example:
A Tall Flat White with:
-Nonfat milk= 100 calories and 10 grams of protein. It’s just brewed espresso and milk.
-Almondmilk= 70 calories and 2 grams protein.
-Coconutmilk= 100 calories and 1 gram protein
-Soymilk= 140 calories and 8 grams protein
The nonfat milk contains natural sweetness from the lactose in the milk, with sugar added to the almond, coconut, and soymilks. You decide your preference.

Lower sugar, lower calorie Starbucks TEA drinks

Starbucks tea drinks are my new obsession. Forget boring unsweetened tea, it’s all about the add-ins.

Starbucks unsweetened passion tea with dragonfruit add-in and pearls

Unsweetened Passion Tea with Dragonfruit and Pearls: order unsweetened passion tea (with 1-2 packets of stevia or preferred sweetener if you like sweet tea), dried dragonfruit add-in, and 1 scoop of pearls for a bit of sugar but lots of fun.
Swap the passion tea for unsweetened Green Tea with the same additions. 

Starbucks Iced Energy – only 10 calories

Starbucks iced energy drinks – Tropical Citrus and Melon Burst

These new Starbucks Iced Energy drinks are only available in iced Venti size and contain 10 calories and zero sugar. As far as I can tell, these are the ONLY fast food energy drinks that are sugar-free! Similar to other energy drinks on the market, they contain caffeine. A venti has 180mg of caffeine which is less than a grande brewed Caffe Americano, and 1/2 of the caffeine in a grande brewed Veranda blend which has 360mg!! It’s recommended to limit total caffeine intake to less than 400mg per day, check with your doctor if you have any medical issues, or take medications that may be affected by caffeine.

FYI: UPDATE!

Starbuck no longer offers “skinny” or “light” Frappuccinos. They very quietly dropped their light Frappuccino syrup and only use the full sugar version for all frapps. There is no longer a way to order a sugar free or low sugar frappuccino. You can blend coffee, sugar free syrup, and ice without the frappuccino syrup but it’s super icy and chunky and lacks the creaminess the standard syrup brings. My advice is to skip the frapps altogether. 

Remember all the buzz about the Unicorn Frappuccino? Well, I kept it real and shared my opinion about the magical drink in this video 🙂  Did you try one? What did you think?

SUMMARY OF THE LOWEST CALORIE DRINKS AT STARBUCKS

WITH CAFFEINE:

Coffee based: Black brewed coffee, espresso. or cold brew with a splash of milk and no calorie sweetener
Lowest calorie hand-crafted drinks: Tall flat white with almond milk, Macchiato with almond milk and no calorie sweetener, Cappuccino with almond milk and no calorie sweetener, Iced Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso with almond milk.

Not coffee based: Matcha Green Tea Latte with almond milk, iced shaken unsweetened green tea or black tea with no calorie sweetener (add freeze-dried fruit for fun and flavor with few calories), Iced Energy (available in venti only and has 180mg caffeine) 

WITHOUT CAFFEINE:

Any of the above coffee drinks made with decaf brewed coffee or espresso (cold brew not available in decaf)
Unsweetened Tazo hibiscus tea or any other herbal tea

CHECK THE ENTIRE LIST OF STARBUCKS BEVERAGE NUTRITION INFORMATION HERE

If you have any additional tips or tricks for what to order at Starbucks when trying to lose weight, please share them with me in the comments below 🙂

If you like the info in the post, check out all my “What to Order…” posts for Dunkin Donuts, Panera and more fast food offerings!

https://nutritionstarringyou.com/what-to-order-at-dunkin-donuts-when-trying-to-lose-weight/
https://nutritionstarringyou.com/what-to-order-at-panera-when-trying-to-lose-weight/
https://nutritionstarringyou.com/how-order-sushi-lose-weight/

Disclaimer- Starbucks can change their formulations and recipes at any time which may invalidate the accuracy of any nutrition facts reported here. They also do not make most drink variations available to calculate the calories, sugar, etc. Some are my best estimations based on available information.

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Healthier options at Starbucks