orange zest instead. The simpler your drink, the less likely it will cause you to put on weight before your next pool party.
Hold the Juice
Summer is the perfect time for long brunches with friends and bottomless drink options. But brunch is also the most difficult time to stick to your diet, especially when you choose to indulge in mimosas for hours on end. When you’re face to face with a carafe of OJ and bottles of champagne, choose to skip out on the juice and just do the champagne on its own.
Champagne is not the healthiest alcoholic beverage, but you can do much worse by drowning it in more sugar with OJ.
Beyond brunch, even your simpler drinks like cranberry and vodka and pineapple and rum pack a big sugary punch.
Unless you’re getting freshly squeezed juice from the fruit itself, typically the juices used in your go-to drinks are juice cocktails, which are a mix of some fruit juice along with other sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup.
Your best bet, other than to bring your own fresh-squeezed juice along with you to the bar, is to drink your liquor straight, or with a splash of the juice of your choice. You’ll save a ton of calories in the long run, not to mention you’ll be consuming far less sugar than if you downed several servings of juice in one sitting.
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Everything in Moderation
You can have your summer drinks and eat at the cookout too. Just remember to do everything in moderation.
Balance out your drinks with ample water and use some of the tips from this article to help you survive your next summer kick-back without ruining all your hard work in the gym and in the kitchen. Bring it on summer!
Sharita Jennings is a fitness and travel enthusiast and creator of Get Fit Like That, LLC. She is a health policy attorney and ACE certified group fitness instructor and fitness nutrition specialist. She provides online fitness plans and leads group fitness classes in Washington DC. Check out her fitness tips and workouts at GetFitLikeThat.com.