I'm sure you've seen or heard something similar to this- If you eat that cookie you'll need to spend an extra 25 minutes on the treadmill. Or that slice of pie is worth 75 minutes on the cycle. This was the case last week when the local news had a story on the caloric burn of kissing. The anchor used the example of an In n Out Double Double, stating you'd need 335 minutes of kissing to burn off the 670 calorie burger. Here's the problem, was that burger a bonus snack? Obviously for someone trying to lose fat, a double beef and cheese burger is not the best choice. But when it is put as a suggestion that everything you eat requires X number of minutes exercising to burn it off makes no sense to me. And it's causing some major confusion for people trying to shed fat.

Everyday you require a range of calories for survival and activity. If you go over, the excess gets stored. If you stay under you possibly use up some of the calories you have stored, or in some cases make up for it in the following days by evening out your consumption. But every calorie shouldn't be looked at as requiring additional exercise to burn it off. Plan your eating so that you can enjoy an occasional treat without the guilt of needing to work it off. Remember you need calories to live. Think nutrition first, and if you've done your math you may have room for an occasional treat that is within reason. If that treat exceeded your allowance by 670 calories sorry, that was not within reason!


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