Mmm – looks good, but is it worth the calories?

In today’s Local Living section of The Washington Post, there’s a well-written and illustrated article titled Walk away vs walk it off by Gabriella Boston. It gives a visual demonstration of how few calories you burn with various activities relative to how many you can consume by eating a fast food meal. When you’re huffing and puffing at the gym and the treadmill or elliptical display shows that you’ve burned a grand total of 200 or even 300 calories, it’s sobering to think that your efforts are only the equivalent of one large cookie or a few slices of bread — not even a bagel! Note that the article’s illustration refers to the calories burned for a 130 pound person; if you weigh more, you’ll probably be burning more calories in the given amount of time, assuming you go at a similar pace as a lighter person would go.

Here’s the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/exercise-cost-information/2013/07/02/2cec99c4-ddda-11e2-b797-cbd4cb13f9c6_story.html

For more on balancing calories burned during exercise and calories consumed, check out some of our nutrition articles!

Happy 4th!