The holiday season is in full swing and if your pants are already shrinking, read on! Every decision counts and today’s post gives us ammunition to start living our New Year’s resolutions now with healthier holiday drink choices.

Between taste-testing my baked holiday goodies and all the temptations offered at social gatherings, the indulgences are starting to add up – straight to my butt and thighs! I suspect many of you are experiencing the same struggles so we’ve planned several posts (including today’s) that focus on healthier holiday options.

Healthier Holiday Drinks

If you’re maintaining your weight with healthy eating and regular (and holistic) physical activity, you have the luxury of looking mainly at holiday drinks offering health benefits and not so much their caloric load. Try Steph’s Holiday Hot Apple Cider and Minty Hot Cocoa in Healthy Holiday Bevvies.

Oprah’s favourite doctors, Doc Oz and Doc Roizen (authors of the YOU series), suggest hot toddies, gin cocktails, mojitos and red wine instead of your usual picks (and tells us why) in Healthy Holiday Cocktails.

For those of us who want health benefits AND to be mindful of calories this season, knowledge is power! The MayoClinic lists common holiday drinks and their calories. And have some fun by choosing holiday drinks rated low on the Lehigh Valley Health Network’s chocolate kiss scale in Healthy Holiday Drinks.

While all alcohol has calories and most of them empty (i.e. deficient in nutrition), distilled spirits seem to be the best option if you’re watching your weight: they have no carbs and measure in at about 100 calories per ounce. Many sources warn about the hidden calories in mixes so try this one:

Holiday Cosmo-POM-itan

Serves: 1

Ingredients

• 1 oz vodka
• 4 oz POM Cranberry
• 0.5 oz lemon juice
• pomegranate seeds (for garnish)

Preparation

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, add ingredients (except for garnish). Shake and strain into a martini glass and garnish with 5-6 pomegranate seeds.

Health benefits: With only 137.6 calories, this healthier cocktail option (a POM-tini) is great for the waistline and thanks to POM juice, packs a wallop in nutrients and antioxidants. POM also promises: no added sugars, preservatives or colours; good source of potassium; gluten-free; certified kosher; and flash pasteurized to retain both flavour and nutrients.

Nutritional Info

Calories 137.6

Total Fat 0.0 g
Saturated Fat 0.0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.0 g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.0 g
Cholesterol 0.0 mg
Sodium 15.4 mg
Potassium 228.2 mg
Total Carbohydrate 18.4 g
Dietary Fiber 0.0 g
Sugars 17.8 g
Protein 0.5 g

Vitamin A 0.1 %
Vitamin B-12 0.0 %
Vitamin B-6 0.3 %
Vitamin C 0.5 %
Vitamin D 0.0 %
Vitamin E 0.1 %
Calcium 2.0 %
Copper 0.3 %
Folate 0.1 %
Iron 1.1 %
Magnesium 0.0 %
Manganese 0.0 %
Niacin 0.1 %
Pantothenic Acid     0.3 %
Phosphorus     0.2 %
Riboflavin 0.2 %
Selenium 0.0 %
Thiamin 0.2 %
Zinc 0.0 %

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

For the most part, alcohol is just junk food: loads of empty calories with little nutritional value. But it’s the holidays! What better time is there to loosen your control a bit and indulge in some cheer with friends and family?

We can lessen the health damage of alcohol by either choosing alcohol with health benefits and/or pairing it with healthy mixes.

Warning: food & bevvies which contain hefty health benefits may not necessarily be low in calories, e.g. nuts are equally high in nutrients and calories. The following healthy holiday drink recipes will most definitely put your reduced calorie diet on pause.

Based on a WebMD post, Hot and Healthy Holiday Drinks, here are a couple of warm cups of delicious alcoholic beverages to try when ringing in the New Year:

Steph’s Holiday Hot Apple Cider

Serves: 2

Ingredients

2 cups PC fresh pressed apple cider
2 cups cranberry juice
1 fat orange slice
6 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 oz. dark rum(about 58 calories)

Directions: Stick whole cloves into orange rind. Combine cider, cran juice, orange slice and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Simmer for 20 minutes. Measure 1 oz. each of dark rum and pour into individual serving mugs, top with mulled apple cider.

Health benefits: apples are high in anti-oxidants and phytochemicals, which may help prevent diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, colon cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Cinnamon has been shown to improve glucose and cholestrol in blood levels.

Minty Hot Cocoa

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
dash of sea salt
2 cups vanilla soy beverage
2 oz. white peppermint schnapps (about 83 calories)
stevia to taste

Directions: Mix salt and cocoa powder together in a bowl. In a medium saucepan, heat milk. Mix about 1/3 cup of the hot milk with the cocoa powder and salt mixture, pour back into the saucepan; stir until well-blended. Measure 1 oz. each of peppermint schnapps and pour into individual serving mugs, top with hot cocoa. Add natural sweetner, e.g. stevia, if necessary.

Health benefits: dark chocolate is high in the anti-oxidants, flavinoids, which may help guard against heart disease and boost the immune system.

These healthy holiday drinks will not only help you control your drinking (how many hot drinks can you knock back?) but will also warm your heart as well as your body and mind. But don’t take my word for it! Please come back and let us know what you thought of these healthy bevvy alternatives!

For those who would rather watch their calories, this AskMen post gives you some alternatives and lets you know the worst alcoholic beverages to choose.

There’s only a week left of summer, so while I’m trying to cure my indecision for the Fall… it’s time to party! Here’s the third healthy cocktail recipe for you to try out this weekend:

The Healthier Mojito

Ingredients

1½ oz. dark rum
1 drop stevia or tsp raw honey (adjust to taste)
5 oz club soda
½ fresh lime
3 mint leaves
3 ice cubes

Directions

1. Squeeze lime into the bottom of a high ball glass.
2. Add stevia and mint leaves to juice.
3. Gently mash mint with a pestle or other tool that won’t rip the leaves. You want to simply release the oils.
4. Add rum and stir.
5. Add ice, top cocktail up with the soda water.
6. Garnish with piece of lime.

Feel free to come back and let us know how you enjoyed this healthier cocktail, or if you have any suggestions for improvement!

It’s FRIIIIDAAAAYYY!!! And it’s still summer – when the living is easy… So take it easy! Enjoy the beautiful weather because it’s not here for long. I say put your goals on hold for now, just until the end of summer. The Fall is the perfect time to reevaluate ambitions and start fresh. In the meantime, have fun with friends and enjoy the balmy weather!

So that’s what I did last weekend, as it was the Civic long weekend here in Canada. While I wanted to partake in drinking, I still wanted to make the healthiest choice possible. Enter: a healthier-for-you cocktail recipe, The Chocolate-Covered Grasshopper , and a new feature column here on Live Lighter, “Healthier Alcohol Bevvies.”

For this weekend, we’re going more juicy rather than milky. Please enjoy…

Sweet Summer Lovin’

Ingredients

1 oz vodka
½ oz red wine
1 oz Cranberry juice
2 oz Pomegranate juice
2 Club soda
3 ice cubes

Directions

Stir, sip and savour.

Try it yourself this weekend and come back to tell us your opinion in the comment section below!

It’s Saturday of the Civic Day long weekend and it’s time to kick back and enjoy the fun-loving side of moderation. Rather than get so polluted that I need the whole next day to heal, I’ve chosen a healthier-for-you cocktail to enjoy.

Inspired by the Grasshopper, an alcoholic beverage made with milk and green crème de menthe, this healthier cocktail recipe will be sure to satisfy your “go nuts” craving. Try this minty, milky, chocolatey treat made with soy beverage rather than cow’s milk for yourself. And tell us what you think in the comments below!

The Chocolate-Covered Grasshopper

Ingredients

½ oz. green crème de menthe
½ oz. kahlua
1 cup chocolate soy beverage
2 ice cubes

Directions

Stir, sip and savour.

For those of you who believe life’s all about moderation, even moderation, then stay tuned to Live Lighter’s regular column “Healthier Alcoholic Bevvies.” This regular feature is intended to give you some healthier alternatives for when you want to shake up your system a bit – to make it stronger, of course.

Do you have a healthier-for-you cocktail recipe to share?

Happy Irish Day, Folks! To help all you health conscious people join the festivities without a guilty conscience, I thought you’d be interested in knowing your healthiest choice out of all the beers on the market.

First, just to let you know, beer is healthy for you (well, for some people)! The benefits of beer are numerous, from battling cancer to raising your metabolism. Studies have also shown beer (in moderation, of course) can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and improve mental health. Plus, it has a wide repertoire of nutrients to boot!

But I know, you’re anxious to know which one you should consume tonight while you’re singing “When Irish Eyes are Smiling.” Without further adieu, the healthiest beer to drink is…drum roll, please…my friends’ Chris and Jeff’s home brew !

Fermentation is what our ancestors needed to do to naturally preserve food and drink – before the advent of refrigerators. The process involves bacteria which act as catalysts for chemical conversion. In brewing , yeast converts sugar into alcohol. The microorganisms used in this process actually help our digestion! They are needed to balance the ratio of beneficial to harmful bacteria in our guts, know as flora .

Ah, but not all of us have friends who brew their own beer. So, between this Men’s Health Beer Review for taste and my research, your healthiest choice would be to go for one that has the least amount of calories: an Irish (surprise, surprise) dark, stout beer.

Hmmm…Guiness, anyone?