Your New Year’s Guide to Booze

Appetizer
Drink smart and you can do minimal damage to your diet plan this New Year’s.

Main Course
Nothing gets the hooch flowing faster than the start of a New Year’s party. But how do you reconcile having a good time on the thirty-first with your fitness plans?

Avoid Fancy Mixed Drinks – Those complicated, fruity cocktails can weigh in at five hundred calories or more, the equivalent a whole meal.

Eat a Good, Healthy Meal Before the Party – Alcohol has a strong reputation for lowering willpower. That means that even if you are able to resist fatty party food normally, feeling tipsy might be enough to send you on a binge. Eating beforehand will raise your willpower and make you more equipped to make smart decisions about what you eat.

Light Beer Is Better Than Regular Beer – A single beer can have a surprisingly large number of calories, and light beers, while still not that great, are usually better. Your best bets are Budweiser Select, Michelob Ultra, Miller Lite, and Milwaukee’s Best Light, all of which have under a hundred calories.

Drink Water in Between Alcoholic Drinks – Consuming water won’t just help prevent you from getting a hangover, it will also encourage you to spend some time with a zero calorie beverage in your hand, which might decrease the amount you drink.

Wine is Fine – With the exception of port and maderia, wines generally have pretty low calorie counts, usually about 100 per glass. One of the lowest calorie wines out there is Sauvignon Blanc, which has a mere 80 calories per glass.

Dessert
Some fitness professionals recommend that their clients completely abstain from alcohol, but I like to be a bit more realistic and realize most people trying to get fit (including myself) are real people with real social lives. Still, sometimes people forget that drinks, like soda, alcohol, and juice all have calories too, and you should factor that into your daily calorie count when you are trying to lose weight.