It's no secret that drinking alcohol can get in the way of your fitness goals if you're trying to lose weight. Often full of simple sugars, many alcoholic beverages pack on the pounds by adding "empty calories" to your diet. However, that's not the only way that alcohol can affect your weight. Experts say that drinking can also impact metabolism and digestion, interfere with sleep, and make you eat more while intoxicated or hungover. Ultimately, this can sabotage your weight loss or maintenance, despite your best efforts at the gym.
Limiting your alcohol intake is a great method of tipping the scales back in your favor—not to mention the many ways that quitting or cutting back benefits your organs. Health authorities say that women should drink no more than one alcoholic beverage per day to stay healthy, and men should drink no more than two.
However, if you're going to have a drink, it pays to choose one that can keep you on track with your weight loss plan. These are the five best cocktails to order if you're trying to lose weight, according to a fitness coach.
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1 | "Skinny" cocktails
Oze Mind / ShutterstockElla Caggiano, a fitness coach, content creator, and recent graduate from the University of Miami, has been living a dual life—one as a fitness buff, and another as a college student with an active social life. "I'm able to go out every single weekend while still making progress on my fitness goals," she said in a recent TikTok video about how she does it.
Caggiano says she has a simple trick she uses any time she goes out to a bar—she orders the "skinny" version of a cocktail. "A skinny cocktail is basically the liquor and then anything else added to it is zero calories," she explains.
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2 | Modified mojito
DavideAngelini / ShutterstockCaggiano's first example of a "skinny" cocktail is a modified mojito. She suggests asking the bartender to prepare it without any added sugar. "If you order a mojito, you're going to have simple syrup in it which is what makes it super sweet, but if you remove it and just get a skinny mojito, it's going to have everything else in it besides the simple syrup and it tastes just as good," she explains.
While a regular mojito is around 240 calories, a "skinny" mojito is likely to contain only 100, Caggiano says. "You're just not going to be able to tell the difference," she adds.
3 | Modified margarita
ShutterstockAnother drink to order if you're trying to lose weight is a modified margarita. Ask the bartender to skip the triple sec and the sugar around the rim of the glass.
"Oftentimes skinny margaritas will have a splash of orange juice as opposed to triple sec which has a ton of extra calories, so instead of it being upwards of 200 to 300 calories, it might be around 120," the fitness expert explains.
4 | Rum and Diet Coke
5PH/ShutterstockNext, a rum and Diet Coke is another cocktail you can enjoy without cheating on your diet plan, Caggiano says. "If you take a regular rum and Coke it's around 240 calories but if you just take it with Diet Coke instead it's only 100," she says in the video.
However, some research suggests that diet mixers intensify the effects of alcohol—meaning they make you feel drunk faster. This could be especially problematic if you're on a low-calorie diet, which can also trigger a more serious reaction to alcohol.
5 | Modified Moscow mule
Elena Veselova / ShutterstockFinally, Caggiano suggests ordering a modified Moscow mule—typically a mixture of vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice—without the full-calorie mixer.
"Moscow mule has regular ginger beer in it and if you just swap it for diet ginger beer you're going to be saving yourself upwards of 100 to 200 calories," she says.
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