Saving 100s of Calories at the Bar

It's Friday, and all you can think about is leaving work and getting drinks at happy hour. I totally understand this, but thought I'd talk about low calorie cocktails, and ways you can save up to about 100 calories (and sugar!) per drink simply by adjusting one of the ingredients.

Lets first list some popular drinks that have under 150 calories (and by this I mean a single, not a double...):
*Green Apple Martini (1oz ea/ vodka, sour apple, apple juice, 148)
*Bloody Mary (5oz, 118)
*Red Wine (5oz, 120)
*White Wine (5oz, 120)
*Light Beer (12oz, 95-136)
*Champagne (5oz, 106-120)
*Spiced Cider w/ Rum (8oz, 150)
*Mimosa (4oz, 75)
*Rum and Diet Coke (8oz, 100)
*Mike's Hard Lemonade (11oz, 98)
*Whiskey Sour (125)

Ok, there obviously aren't many listed above and the problem with most cocktails is the mixers. A shot of alcohol is generally around 80-100 calories, but you can add hundreds of calories on top of that, especially with the more complex ones. To save a lot of calories on your favorite drinks what you can do is use diet, lite, or sugar free mixers such as diet soft drinks, lite cranberry juice, lite orange juice, diet tonic water, crystal lite, splenda, etc.

Another alternative is obviously just to have shots, but that doesn't work so well when you're going out for social time with friends... you might be really messed up by 8pm...haha. A couple favorites of mine are Black Cherry vodka with Sprite 0 (or any fruity vodka) and Captain Morgan's with Diet Coke. My boyfriend drinks a lot of Three Olives flavored vodka with sugar- free Red Bull (good if you have a sweet tooth or are tired!).

Some of the worst alcoholic drinks you can have (and this might depress some people), are Long Island Iced Teas, Margaritas, Pina Coladas, White Russians, and Mai Tais. All of these have between 400 and 800 calories EACH! So much for dinner... I won't even bother getting into the crazy concoctions they offer at restaurants, because those can be well over 1000 calories each. It's sad, because that TGI Friday's Mudslide is soooo good.

So I'm obviously not going to say never have a Margarita, but just keep these things in mind when you're wondering why you're feeling a little bloated the next day. I saw somewhere online that a lot of Americans DRINK 20% of their calories... not good.

p.s. You can also switch out every other drink with a non-alcoholic one, which is what I do sometimes... partially because of calorie watching, and partially because I'm a light weight :).

If you have anymore ideas of low calorie cocktails, feel free to post them in my Fit Chicks forum because I'm always looking for new options as I'm sure others are too.

Have a great holiday weekend!! :)