1. Be Aware of Fruity Adult Beverages – These drinks tend to be loaded with sugar and calories. Your average long island ice tea or pina colada can range from 600-800 calories per drink! You have two of those and chips and guacamole and your looking at around 2000 calories. That is more than the calorie intake of the average individual for the whole day.

2.  Keep Happy Hour Bar Food Healthy – It is tempting to want to eat a little snack when your having a few cocktails at happy hours. Wings, burgers, fries, and other fatty foods are typically your options. Instead of choosing these look for healthier options such as salads, grilled chicken sandwiches without mayo, and even sushi. Also instead of getting a side of fries or other fried option try getting a side salad or pickle with your next meal.

3.  Ice cream with toppings is your enemy – Ice cream tends to already contain a lot of calories and fat. Eating boutique ice creams like Ben and Jerry’s Ample Hills, Dairy Queen and others with added mix-ins in the ice cream can really shoot your calorie and fat intake to the next level. Cold Stone Creamery’s Mud Pie Mojo, for example, contains coffee ice cream with bits of Oreo cookie, peanut butter, roasted almonds and fudge, and adds up to more than 600 calories and 45 grams of fat. Go for a sorbet instead and decrease the serving size and your looking more like 150 calories!

4.  Beware of the chips and dip at BBQs – An ounce of potato chips contain 150 calories. Once ounce is not a lot and most typically tend to eat 2 to 3 times that amount that would equate to 450 calories. If you add dip to this equation, say two tablespoons of french onion dip and your adding another 60 calories. These two added together add up to about a quarter of the average individuals daily calorie intake. The other problem is there is no real nutritional benefit to chips or dip. Try sticking to veggies they have a similar crunch and instead of a dip try a hummus.

5.  Keep summer salads light – salads can be a great low calorie food source or calorie bombs. Things like creamy pasta salads can be loaded with calories. An example is Sbarro’s pasta primavera salad which clocks in at 666 calories per serving and 17g of fat, it is in fact the devil!  Green Salads can also be culprits. The more toppings you add and the more dressing you put on the higher the calorie count becomes. Four tablespoons of dressing can contain nearly 400 calories most of which is fat. Buy low-fat dressings or sub the mayo for greek yogurt.