By Kelly

I am slowly but surely turning into the low-rent version of Carrie Bradshaw.

This is not entirely a bad thing – I’m finding myself, more and more, in situations where I get the opportunity to network with other writers and artists, making it easier for me to find freelance work and promote my personal blog. Some of the situations in which I frequently find myself are, admittedly, a little odd. Monday, for instance, I had an early-morning meeting at Starbucks that ended with me trying on a giant gold hat in the shape of a teacup for a volunteer gig I’m doing next week. And it keeps my schedule pretty hectic – I went out five of the past seven nights. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’m having a great time, meeting interesting people and earning a living all at the same time.

The problem is that it’s harder to control my diet (God, I hate that word) under these conditions. When you’re at home, where YOU bought the food, where YOU prepare it and where YOU portion it out, it’s obviously much easier to keep track of how many calories, fat grams and other nutrients you’re consuming (not to mention the quality of the food – cocktail buffets don’t often serve organic, all-natural, humanely-raised meat, for example). At social events, you’re essentially flying blind.

It’s also harder to resist the not-so-healthy stuff. Here in Louisiana, we eat a lot of fried seafood at parties, and man, is it ever delicious. And fried crab claws are not something I ever cook at home, so it’s tempting to overeat them when they happen to cross my path.

But not long ago, I had a come-to-Jesus meeting with myself about my health and fitness goals, and I acknowledged that going out a lot is probably going to be a big part of my life for a long time to come, and if I want to be healthy, I can’t just can’t eat as many fried shrimp or as much salmon mousse as I can physically shovel into my canape-hole. So I’ve started employing a few tricks:

–Find out what’s being served ahead of time if you can. It’s not really that difficult, especially if you RSVP by phone. When the host says, “We’re having light hors d’oeuvres,” say, “Cool! What’re we having?” If the answer is fried cheese sticks, fried fish fillets and French fries, try to eat beforehand.

–Eat lightly the rest of the day if you know you’re going out in the evening. This gives you a little more leeway to enjoy whatever’s on the menu.

–Practice portion control. If eating ahead of time isn’t convenient, then enjoy small servings of what’s available. In other words, have two prawn won tons, not 12.

–Skip the sweets. We all know sugar’s bad for us, and unless it’s something homemade or highly exotic, it’s probably not worth tacking those extra calories onto whatever you’ve already eaten.

–Drink smart. It’s never a good idea to drink heavily at work-related or networking events. Plus, alcohol lowers your inhibitions, making you far more likely to dive face-first into the cupcake tray. (Not that I would know anything about that. No, sir. Not me. Nuh uh.)

Speaking of cocktails, I always thought I was being virtuous by ordering Cosmopolitans (coughCarrieBradshawmuchcough). It’s just vodka and cranberry juice, right? And cranberry juice contains antioxidants! Why, it’s practically medicinal! Perhaps I should order three.

WRONG! Not until I looked up the calorie counts for popular cocktails online did I learn that the Cosmo packs a 250-calorie punch. And an eight-ounce glass of white wine has almost as many!

So because I am helpful (and also because I drink a lot), I compiled a list of some common cocktails under 150 calories:

–Green apple martini (1 oz. each vodka, sour apple, apple juice) – 148
–Bloody Mary (5 oz.) – 118
–Champagne (4 oz.) – 85
–Rum and Diet Coke (8 oz.) – 100
–Vodka and Diet Sprite (1 oz. 80-proof vodka) – 64
–Gin and tonic – 100

And my personal favorite, the 70-calorie-ish “Haley-rita,” concocted by my friend Haley Young, a local fitness instructor and one of the most health-conscious people I know:

1 oz. tequila
4 oz. club soda
A shitload of lime wedges

Squeeze the limes into the tequila-and-soda mixture and enjoy!

I’m always looking for more and better ways to handle myself at functions like these, so I’m curious: What do you do?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 5:59 pm and is filed under Blogs, Mrs. Bachelor Girl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.