We are almost through the second month of the year, but that doesn’t mean everyone 
has broken their New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. That means a lot of people are watching their calories.
The good news for lovers of red wine is that your favorite adult beverage should not be considered a deterrent to losing weight.
Most of the calories come from the alcohol level. Using a standard 5-ounce glass of wine as a barometer, a wine with an alcohol level of 12% has only about 91 calories. If the wine has an alcohol level of 15%, the calorie count is around 119.
So, if you keep your serving size to 5 ounces, and you limit your number of servings, there’s no reason red wine can’t be part of your “new diet” for the “new year.”
Here are two other ideas for making sure red wine remains your waist’s friend, rather than its enemy:
- When dining out, share a glass. Order one glass of wine and two glasses, and share the wine with your dining partner. That will cut the calorie count in half. Drinking wine when dining out is more of a social activity anyway, and sharing the same wine will give you one more thing to talk about.
- Use the wine to make a spritzer. You also can cut the calorie intake by mixing your red wine with club soda — which has zero calories. Obviously, we would not recommend this for your $100 bottle of Bordeaux, but with your everyday “house wine,” it’s a good way to have a satisfying, refreshing beverage with half the calories. Add a few orange slices, and you have a homemade sangria worthy of the finest tapas of Barcelona.
