�Tis the alcohol season. From now until New Years� Day, based on the number of parties and yuletide festivities that you may be attending, you will likely be consuming more alcohol than typical. So what's your favorite holiday cheer?
According to a Harris Poll, wine seems to be the beverage of choice during the holidays. For men, beer comes in second while ladies are more likely ordering cocktails, spirits, and liquor as their second choice for their holiday cheer. While 5 ounces of wine pours up about 125 calories and a beer will cost you about 150 calories, festive alcoholic beverages can add a tad more calories in your stemware depending upon what is added to the alcohol:
Mulled Wine: 155 calories
Pomegranate Martini: 260 calories
Eggnog with Rum : 500 calories
If you only have one party to go to in a week and you keep to only one drink, any single alcoholic drink, festive or not, won�t cause much caloric damage to your diet. However, if this season�s social calendar is fairly full, I found a nifty alcohol calculator online that allows you to enter the amount of drinks that you plan to consume during the week. It will then tally the predicted amount of calories you may be sipping over the course of the seven days.
Here�s how it works: Let�s say that you�re planning to go to four holiday events this week and plan to have two drinks at each event. Based on the alcohol calculation below, you could be consuming over 1,000 calories and that�s not even counting the appetizers that you�re nibbling on while you are sipping:
Click here to use the calculator to get your personalized intake.
Since you would have to walk briskly for about 4 hours to burn off those 1,052 calories, you may want to consider bundling up and walking to all the holiday parties if you plan to take in that much alcohol.
An easier way to cut your holiday beverage calories is to use this holiday tip: Always drink alcohol in a one-to-one ratio. After a glass of wine, beer, or cocktail make the second "drink" a large glass of sparkling water. Who knows....you may end up stopping after the second "drink" of water and eliminate that second glass of calorie-containing alcohol altogether this holiday season.
Even better, become the designated driver and skip the alcoholic calories altogether.
Happy holidays and thanks for reading the blog, Joan
Twitter: @JoanSalgeBlake
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