The New Year’s celebration is one of the biggest in the world. For many, the revelry involves alcohol, and lots of it. But when a new day (and year) dawns, party goers often feel the aftereffects of their festivities in the form of a nasty hangover.

If this is your predicament, don’t reach for greasy foods, caffeine, or medications, which can worsen the effects of alcohol on your body. Use these natural remedies instead for a fast and healthy hangover recovery.

1. Water

One of the most tried-and-true, widely recognized remedies for too much alcohol is to drink lots of water. Many hangover remedies sound strange and follow bad logic, and will probably not do any good, but this simple tip makes sense. Water will dilute the alcohol in your body, minimize alcohol’s dehydrating effect on your body, and flush out toxins. Try to stay hydrated before, during, and after drinking and its negative effects will diminish considerably.

2. Fruit and fruit juice

Once you’re properly hydrated, start replenishing the vitamins you’ve lost and get your blood sugar back to normal with a tall glass of juice. Orange or tomato juice will replenish lost vitamins and contain natural sugars to help your body metabolize alcohol faster. Bananas are great for restoring depleted potassium levels associated with overindulging, and they have magnesium, beneficial for headaches. If you don’t have any fruit juice, down a Gatorade or other electrolyte-containing sports drink.

3. Ginger

Ginger has been used for centuries as an aid for motion sickness, nausea, and vomiting. Brew some ginger root tea for soothing relief, or pop open a ginger ale for a quick fix.
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Fun-loving Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas is not only the perfect party guest because she always knows which song to spin next, but she’s also got the inside skinny on the best cocktails. She’s the face of Voli Vodka, a line of lower calorie flavored vodkas. She told Chelsea Handler this fall that her daily vodka consumption varies by the week, saying, “If I have one drink a day, I feel better the next day than if I don’t drink at all. I’m just gonna start drinking daily.”

She’s clearly fit, firm and fabulous (Fergalicious to be exact), so how does she do it if she’s swilling vodka on a daily basis? Certainly her 4-6 workouts in the gym every week, but she’ll also tell you it’s because she’s not drinking just any vodka. She’s drinking Voli Vodka, which has 74 calories per shot. A standard shot of vodka has about 100 calories.

Sure, 26 calories is a fair savings when you’re drinking one cocktail or a few, especially daily. But does it really matter when they are still nutritionally void, empty calories? Bonnie Taub-Dix, MA, RD, CDN, author of Read It Before You Eat It and nutrition expert in NY, says not so much.

“My take on this is that many people think that if you don’t chew — it doesn’t count — and that’s simply not true.” Those calories most certainly still count, and maybe more than most because they’re typically accompanied by a lot of sugar – like juice and other mixers.

We showed Bonnie the Fergatini, Voli’s branded version of a Cape Cod, with Voli Lyte, Fresh Lime Juice, and Cranberry Juice.

“Think about it — in this cocktail of 82 calories — only 1-1/2 oz or 1 jigger of vodka is used. How many of us pour just one shot?,” she asked. “That won’t happen at a friend’s party! It also only includes one ounce of juice. That rarely happens too because many of the calories in alcohol are contributed by the mixers.”
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A new study on the drinking patterns of adults finds that the average adult American consumes 100 calories on a daily basis from alcohol alone. Does that not sound like much? It’s actually about 16 percent of total daily calories.

Nutritionist Connie Diekman, in a report by HealthDay, explains that even 100 unneeded calories per day from alcohol translates to a ten pound per year weight gain.

Not surprisingly, men aged 20 to 29 had the highest rates of alcohol consumption at 174 calories per day, and their chosen drink was beer. One 12-ounce beer is 150 calories. The study found that six percent of women and 20 percent of men consume more than 300 calories from alcohol each day.

Of course, not everyone drinks every day, and even if they do, moderate alcohol consumption is not necessarily unhealthy. The catch is what kinds of alcohol Americans are drinking, because a glass of red wine is a lot different than a piña colada.

For the approaching holidays, cut out much of the unwanted weight gain by remembering that liquid calories count and restricting your alcohol consumption or by replacing unhealthy drinks with slimmed-down options.
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“I’ve dropped 7 points off my BMI,” was a recent tweet posted by Jennifer S. That’s quite an accomplishment, considering in February this year, she, standing at just over five-feet tall, weighed 301 pounds. As of last week, she’s down to 265 pounds!

We introduced Jennifer last month as she took her weight loss plans from just-getting-started to hitting-it-hard. We armed her with Jillian Michaels’ BodyMedia arm band and her new Body Revolution 12-DVD series, as well as plenty of her own determination. We’re pleased to hear she’s doing so well.

“I’m trying to keep it positive most of the time,” she told us about her journey so far. It can be a struggle when you have more than 100 pounds to lose, but with the right kind of attitude it can be a healthy adventure.

She’s still using Jillian Michaels’ Body Revolution at levels one and two. She says you’re supposed to go up a level every two weeks, but she’s just not comfortable making that transition yet.

“It’s not geared toward someone in the obese category or with my knee problems,” Jennifer said of the DVD. She likes the workouts, tweets about how intense they are, but is also smart enough to listen to her body and not push herself to the danger zone (she had a partial knee replacement in June and has been cleared to workout by her doctor). She laughs telling us that she uses the Jillian DVDs for her “light days” on Wednesday and Sunday. “If you can imagine!”
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If you’ve ever experienced heartburn and were left stumped as to what the cause was, perhaps you should turn your gaze toward the bottom of your cup – your coffee cup, that is.

Experts from the University of California, Los Angeles, are suggesting that alcohol and caffeinated beverages can have a direct effect on heartburn. This is because a ring of muscle located between the stomach and esophagus called the “lower esophageal sphincter” can be temporarily affected by alcohol and caffeine in some people.

As reported by NPR, UCLA gastroenterologist Kevin Ghassemi, explained that this muscle is meant to be closed at all times except for when food is passing into the esophagus. But because alcohol relaxes it, it creates an opening. And when this happens, he says, stomach acid can come back up into the esophagus, which is reflux – which is what causes the burning sensation we experience with heartburn.

Furthermore, Ghassemi makes the link to caffeine as well saying, “The caffeine that’s in coffee or other caffeinated beverages also will relax the sphincter muscle.”

If you’re one of the lucky few who doesn’t experience heartburn after consuming caffeine or alcohol, consider yourself normal. Ghassemi points out that some people are naturally predisposed due to a “weak or faulty sphincter muscle.” This, he says, can often be influenced by being overweight or obese because it increases the risk.
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