Low Calorie Alcoholic Drinks – Drink A Cocktail AND Lose Weight?
When it comes to drinking alcohol there are very few occasions that are not marked by popping bubbly, cracking open a brew or aerating your favorite bottle of wine.
Alcohol Content
The first thing you need to know about making low calorie alcoholic drinks is the alcohol content of the liquor you’re using. The general rule when it comes to alcohol proof is that the higher the proof, the greater the alcohol content and the greater the calorie count.
Eighty-proof alcohol is the most widely available, and it is made up of 40% alcohol, and 100-proof alcohol is 50% alcohol. There are some in between proofs, but these two are the most common. When you make your own low calorie alcoholic drinks it’s important to take note of the proof so you know how many calories you’re getting per ounce of liquor.
Beer
If you enjoy beer then your best bet for a low calorie alcoholic drink is light beer. Light beer can reduce your calorie count by about 50 calories in some cases. Because of its slightly lower calorie count and alcohol content, light beers have fewer calories than regular beer.
Most light beer has approximately 4% alcohol, while regular beer has 5% or more alcohol content. Some pale ales and light lagers however have an alcohol content as low as 3.5%; these are the best low calorie alcoholic drinks because a 12 ounce bottle has just 95 calories.
Some beer manufacturers have gone even further to offer you the lowest calorie alcoholic drinks with brands like MGD64, which has just 64 calories and Budweiser Select which has 55 calories.
Wine
The key to enjoying low calorie alcoholic drinks like wine is portion size. Wine doesn’t have a lot of calories, but the calories can truly add up when the portion sizes aren’t monitored. Alcoholic drinks like Chardonnay have just 24 calories per ounce while red wine like Merlot has 23 calories per ounce.
When you keep your glass of wine between 4 and 5 fluid ounces you can make your favorite wine a low calorie alcoholic drink. The size of wine servings has been increasing over the years, and a glass of wine at your favorite bar or restaurant can be as large as 8 fluid ounces which means 188 calories in a glass.
Spirits
Drinking spirits, also know as hard liquor, is your best option for creating low calorie alcoholic drinks. Whether you enjoy spirits on the rocks or blended with a mixer, you can enjoy a low calorie alcoholic drink with just 103 calories per serving.
Most people believe that hard alcohol is the most troublesome for weight loss but nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s take gin for example, which has just 96 calories per serving (1.5 fl. oz.). If you enjoy gin on the rocks or with a splash of lime, you can enjoy one of the lowest calorie alcoholic drinks with just 96 calories.
Other types of alcohol like vodka, tequila and rum range in calorie count from 97 to 103 calories per 1.5 ounce serving. To take these spirits and create low calorie alcoholic drinks requires you to make smarter choices about what you mix with it.
Low Calorie Mixers
[Gin & (diet) Tonic is one of the lowest alcoholic drinks you can have with just 96 calories!]
Creating low calorie alcoholic drinks often comes down to what goes
in the glass with the alcohol. These choices mean the difference between
letting alcohol contribute to weight gain or enjoying alcohol while you
lose weight.Soda: If you’re a rum & coke or gin & tonic drinker, there is a very easy way to turn these into low calorie alcoholic drinks; swap out the high calorie soda for diet soda. Diet cola and diet tonic water have zero calories so you can enjoy a gin & tonic that has just 96 calories.
Juice: When it comes to making lower calorie alcoholic drinks, choose fresh-squeezed juice over sugary, high-calorie juices. To make a low calorie screwdriver, squeeze the juice from one orange rather than the super sugar orange drink available at most drinking establishments and you can save at least 10 calories in your drink.
Another option is to choose real juice without lots of additional sugar added to it. Brands like Simply Orange and Odwalla have fewer calories than orange flavored drinks so you can enjoy low calorie alcoholic drinks while you lose weight.
Avoid alcoholic drinks that have more than 1 or 2 types of alcohol in them because the calorie count will be too high. Keep liqueurs and syrups to a minimum as well if you want a low calorie alcoholic drink. Drinking and losing weight are not mutually exclusive; in fact they can coexist when you make smart alcohol decisions.
