The Busy Mama’s Guide to Holiday Drinking: How to lose weight and still enjoy a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve
One of the biggest lies health and fitness gurus teach is that to lose weight you have to give up your favorite foods and drinks. But that’s just not true! You can enjoy desserts, decadent dishes, even alcohol and still lose weight! If you want to learn how to enjoy a drink during the holiday season while sticking to your health goals, then save this post! It’s going to be the ultimate guide to drinking for weight loss!
Mama, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live a healthy life if it means giving up everything fun! And sometimes, that means having a cocktail at a holiday party, some spiked eggnog on Christmas eve and a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve!
The tips I’m going to share with you will teach you how to create a healthy holiday season that includes alcohol. As you learn how your body reacts to alcohol and how you can set yourself up for success, you’ll be able to avoid gaining the holiday 15!
Understand what alcohol is costing you nutritionally
Before you take your first sip of alcohol, you need to understand what it costs you nutritionally to drink. You may be a pro at reading nutrition labels, but unfortunately when it comes to alcohol that isn’t going to cut it. Alcohol is not a macronutrient, therefore; it takes a little more work to really understand how your body will process it.
In order to really understand how alcohol effects your weight, you need a quick lesson in calories and macronutrients. Each macronutrient (protein, fat, carbohydrates) and alcohol has it’s own calorie value.
1 g of fat = 9 calories
1 g of carb = 4 calories
1 g of protein = 4 calories
1 g of alcohol = 7 calories
When you’re dealing with food, it’s easy to understand where your calories are coming from - you add up the calories for each macronutrient and you get the total calories for the food. But alcohol doesn’t work like food because alcohol isn’t a macronutrient. Sometimes the 7 calores adds up to the total calories and sometimes it doesn’t. The easiest way to understand the nutritional cost of alcohol is to choose a macronutrient to treat it like. Although alcohol isn’t a food, it is a sugar, so it can be treated like a carbohydrate.
As you saw, alcohol and carbs have different calorie counts, so this is where things can get a little tricky,
In order to track alcohol as a carb, you need to take the total calories and divide it by 4 (because there are 4 calories per 1 gram of carbs.) Once you have that number, you can plan for it as a part of your macronutrients and macro tracking.
One of the biggest benefits of understanding what the nutritional cost of alcohol is, is that you can decide if that’s a price you’re willing to pay. For some of my clients, it’s 100% worth it! For others, they’d rather use their carbs for a dessert or some extra food. There’s no right or wrong choice when it comes to alcohol, it’s just your preference!
Serving sizes differ for each type of alcohol
Once you start paying attention to your nutrition, you’re going to start understanding serving sizes. Most beverages have an average serving size of 8 ounces, but once again, alcohol likes to bust all the rules!
It’s important to understand the different serving sizes so that you can accurately plan for your drinks. For example, a serving of beer is usually 12 oz, a serving of wine is around 4 oz, and hard alcohol is usually around 1.5 oz.
If you’re at a bar, it’s usually easier to know how much you’re drinking because bartenders pay attention to how much they pour. But if you’re at home or at a party where someone else is serving drinks, make sure you’re aware of how much you’re drinking. Most adults have about 10 oz of wine in a glass, which is two and a half times the serving size!
The higher alcohol content in hard liquors is what drastically reduces the serving size. You’re going to get less volume with hard liquors than with beer or wine, but if that doesn’t bother you, then drink up, mama! Remember, there’s no good or bad drinks! It’s all up to what you like and what will satisfy you.
Create a plan
Now that you have a full understanding of how alcohol works into your nutritional choices, it’s time to create a plan! Having a plan for what you want to drink, is vital to sticking to your health goals during the holiday season.
When you’re making your plan, decide how much you’re going to drink. The less you drink, the better decision-making skills you’re going to have throughout the night. When we drink too much it impairs our decision making skills - this applies to so many things including your nutrition!
Remember in college when you’d go out with your girlfriends and there was that gross guy that at the beginning of the night you swore you wouldn’t even talk to, but then a few drinks in you were making out with?
That’s how drinking can affect your nutritional choices! You say you won’t drink too much, but you don’t specify what’s too much then all of a sudden you’re in the drive through grabbing tacos because it sounds soooo good.
A plan can save you from the taco regret! If you want to plan for multiple drinks, do it! But also make a plan of what you’re going to do to keep the rest of your nutritional choices in line with your goals!
How to make smart decisions with alcohol
If you want to drink, but also want to limit the effects of alcohol, try a few of these ideas!
Use low-calorie sweeteners
Mixed drinks can be fun to create and taste great, but they usually pack a lot of extra carbs that you don’t need! Instead of drinking all your carbs, try adding these calorie-free mix-ins.
Diet sodas
Sparkling water (like LaCroix)
Sugar-free syrups
Sparkling Ice drinks
Drink plenty of water
Hydrating is going to be an amazing way to counteract the alcohol and keep your decision making abilities in check.
You should drink plenty of water before you go out, but it’s also super helpful to drink a glass of water between drinks. This will slow down how much alcohol you’re drinking too! You might even find that the water is refreshing so you don’t need to keep ordering drinks.
Have a post drink plan
I love the social aspect of drinking, but personally I don’t enjoy the hangover I get when I drink. To avoid feeling horrible the next day, I’ll have maybe one drink at a holiday party, then I switch over to soda or diet cranberry juice.
No one knows that I’ve stopped drinking, but I feel so much better when I don’t drink too much! I can still have a great time and enjoy all the social aspects of a party without drinking alcohol.
If you’re ready how to learn how to enjoy a glass of wine on a weeknight or a flute of champagne at a holiday party and still reach your health and weight loss goals, then let’s chat! Schedule a free discovery call with me today.
