Everyone likes to hang out at Spokane Bars and with friends and family to party this time of year. And most of the time, we totally ignore the calories in the drinks we are consuming. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Many of our favorite holiday drinks have more calories and most meals we are eating at the same time! Here are a few slightly healthier alternatives to those holiday favorites, and what the traditional stand-by’s are doing to our waist lines.

Egg Nog

Egg Nog is rich, creamy, and oh-so-yummy. And like most things that fall into that decadent category, it is LOADED with calories. One cup of Egg Nog can set you back 343 calories and 19 g of fat, and that’s without the booze. Add a shot of rum, that number jumps to well over 400 calories per cup. Add whipped cream and more rum, and its caloric content sky rockets.

Light egg nog is better but only slightly. A cup has 280 calories and 4 g of fat.

Ginger Snap Latte

Many of our favorite Spokane coffee bars offer tons of delicious holiday treats, like Spokane Starbucks Ginger Snap Latte. (formerly Gingerbread Latte). Warm, spicy and sweet, it’s the perfect pick-me-up on a dreary winter day. But a grande Gingersnap Latte with whipped cream will run you 340 calories and 13 g of fat.

Want to slice a few numbers off that count? Order yours with non-fat milk (2% is the default) and no whip. Even then, you’re still looking at 220 calories, but you’re saving yourself 120 calories, which can really add up over time.

Hot Buttered Rum

Anything with butter and rum can’t be all that great for you. There are 500 calories in a half-cup serving! If you have a full cup, you have half your daily caloric intake in a single drink. With so many other hot drinks out there that aren’t so high in calories, add this one to your “never gonna drink it!” list.

Mulled Wine

Wine is usually a healthier alcoholic choice in general. So wouldn’t a warmed up version with a few spices added be just as good? Sorry, but no. A glass of mulled wine can have 356 calories an 40 g of carbs.

What makes the difference? Sugar. And lots of it. So stick to standard wine, and avoid the sugar and added calories.

Hot Chocolate

Hot chocolate is soooo yummy. As soon as the temperature drops, and we are out side skiing, sledding, chopping down our own Spokane Christmas tree, or any of the other wonderful things to do in the cold weather, hot chocolate is on the top of the list for a quick warm-me-up. The calories. A large hot chocolate from your Spokane Dunkin Donuts has 480 calories, 18 g of fat and an astounding 61 g of sugar. To give you an idea of just how much that is, consider this: A Spokane McDonald’s cheeseburger has 330 calories.

So basically, if you don’t want to gain weight over the holidays, it would actually be best to just skip these holiday favorites. And if you can’t avoid them, make sure to work out extra hard with Zach Hunt, from Physzique Personal Fitness!

Everyone likes to have a good time, especially on a Friday night after a long, hard week. We all need to find time to relax, and going to a Spokane bar is an easy way to burn off steam, but do you know what those yummy, sweet drinks are doing to your brain, organs, and waist line? Bars in Spokane are helping you get fatter.

The ingredient that gives you that relaxed, uninhibited feeling is ethanol, which comes from fermented grains. From the moment you swallow, it is treated differently than anything else you ingest. It soaks through your stomach lining faster than other foods and drinks, and goes right to your liver. Your liver can only handle so much alcohol, so what is left over makes a bee line right for your brain. How quickly you feel “buzzed” may depend on how much or how little food you have in your stomach as well.

Spokane Bars: How does your body react to alcohol?

Alcohol first affects the brain’s frontal lobes, the reasoning centers, sedating the inhibitory nerves. The more you drink the more of your brain cells you kill. Higher levels of alcohol then affect the centers of speech, vision, motor control and eventually consciousness. But it affects the rest of your body, too. In your stomach, it causes gastritis (inflammation) and can lead to stomach ulcers. Excessive drinking can lead to cirrhosis of the liver (irreversible scarring of the liver).

Depending upon body size, it can take one to two hours to metabolize one drink. A 12-ounce beer; 4 ounces of wine and 1.5 ounces of hard liquor each contain about .5 ounce of alcohol, approximately the amount your body is capable of processing in one hour. More than that, and you move out of the “buzzed” feeling and into “drunk.”

Spokane Bars: Caloric Content.

Alcohol is a highly concentrated source of calories containing 7 calories per gram (compared to 4 cals/g for protein and carbohydrates and 9 cal/g for fat). These calories are utilized by the body mainly for heat production and are not converted to glycogen, the main fuel for muscle activity. And when you add it to sweet, sugary, and creamy drinks, the calorie content shoots through the roof. And in general, most people tend to eat mindlessly while drinking, so you really have no idea how many calories you are consuming.

If you are going to go to bars in Spokane, limit your alcohol intake, and alternate those adult beverages with soft drinks, preferably water to help offset the dehydration that is cause by alcohol. And pay attention to what you eat!