The holidays are here and with that comes a good deal of cheer, liquid cheer that is if you get where I'm going with this.
There's nothing wrong with having a few alcoholic beverages here and there, especially when celebrating, but it's also important to be aware of the calories involved in drinking when you have fitness goals that you're sticking to!
Here are some little helpful cheatsheets that I made for you guys to help you understand how to track and moderate your alcohol.
First, here are some guidelines for how many calories the most common alcoholic drinks contain:
Now let's look at how you could potentially track them:
You see, alcohol itself has calories. It is, in fact, the hidden fourth macronutrient: carbs, fats, proteins, and alcohol! With 7 calories per gram, alcohol sits just below fats and right above carbs and proteins. If you're tracking macros, you definitely won't have a number of grams of alcohol to shoot for each day.. so instead of tracking it as alcohol calories, you'll choose to track it as either carbs or fats and use the conversion above.
By keeping track of your calories and / or macros, you'll know how much energy is being taken into your body so that you can figure out if you're on track to your goal. If you're eating a calories surplus, you'll likely be gaining weight where as if you are eating less calories than you're burning, you will lose weight.
There's nothing wrong with a drink or two in moderation, but knowing what exactly you're drinking can be a great tool to make sure you don't overdo it!