Friday, February 20, 2009

Fat Tuesday Fitness Fix

So you wanna have yourself a paczki or two this Fat Tuesday? You don't have to be Polish to enjoy these rich and sumptuous treats that roll out once a year. But unlike your average jelly or custard-filled doughnut, these paczki can wreak havoc on your waistline. Unless of course you try to balance your paczki intake with calorie-burning activities.

The average paczki--traditionally loaded with baking riches like butter, sugar and eggs that go into hiding during the 40 days of Lent--can cost you roughly 420 calories each. Not to mention having at least 25 grams of fat per 5-ounce treat. And it's hard to eat only one.

Before your belly is bulging and you're wondering where you went wrong, plan some activities into your Fat Tuesday to get you moving. Not only will you be less likely to crave a second or third sweet treat (and I didn't even get to the New Orleans favorite King Cake) but you'll be burning calories to stave off a glut that could weigh down your gut.

Here are a few activities and their per hour calorie counts to help you gauge how much you can put in versus put out come Fat Tuesday. These are based on a 130 pound female and computed at healthdiscovery.net.
  • Aerobics, high impact--437 calories
  • Bicycling, stationary, vigorous--655 calories
  • Rowing, stationary, vigorous--530 calories
  • Stair step machine--374 calories
  • Weight lifiting, general--187 calories
  • Hiking--374 calories
  • Rockclimbing, ascending--686 calories and descending--499 calories
  • Running, 8 min/mile--780 9 min/mile--686 calories
  • Cross-country skiing--499 calories
  • Downhill skiing--374 calories
  • Snowshoeing--499 calories
  • Swimming--374 calories
  • Walking, 15 min/mile--281 calories
There are tons of other calorie burn calculators out there, some showing varied results for activities (Check out the calorie calculator at Discovery Health, for example). But either way, you might be spending all day at the gym on Wednesday to recover from your Fat Tuesday. At least that's how I'm suspecting my Fat Tuesday might go down--the Polish side in me comes out in full force. Photo grabbed from Kodamakitty at flickr. Posted by Kate

No comments:

Post a Comment

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...