As Summer approaches and the temperatures rise here in Alabama and across the nation, so do the outdoor parties and trips for ice cream. But do you know how long it would take to burn off your favorite summer foods?
Potato salad. A cookout staple, potato salad is an all american favorite. But the mix of potatoes and ingredients like mayo can skyrocket your caloric intake. The average portion of potato salad is 1/2 cup has 300 calories, which would take 30 minutes of jogging to burn off. The problem is the average person actually eats two or more servings of the dish, which equals at least an hour of running...and that's just in your side dish! Try a mixed greens salad instead with colorful veggies and a homemade honey dijon dressing for around 50 calories.
Lemonade. An average serving of lemonade contains 120 calories per 8 oz, but did you know the average household glass can hold 16 oz? Which means a full, average glass of lemonade has around 240 calories. You would have to jump rope nonstop for 25 minutes to burn that glass off. Have a refill and plan to spend 45 minutes jumping rope. Make your own lemonade with no calorie, natural sweetener to lessen the caloric intake.
Ribs. One rack of ribs has around 1300 calories. To burn that off you'd have to circuit train with minimal rest for 2 and a half hours. Opt for a sirloin burger or grilled chicken instead and save over 1,000 calories.
A trip for ice cream. If you head to Dairy Queen or Sonic or any of the like this summer and pick up a medium Blizzard or Blast, be prepared to consume around 1,000 calories. It would take almost 5 hours of walking at 3mph to burn this decadence off. Opt for a single scoop or cone of ice cream and save about 800 calories (or over 3 hours of walking). Keep ice cream out of the house and save it for special trips to the ice cream or frozen yogurt joint. If you pulled the ice cream out of the freezer and ate a bowl every evening this summer, you'd gain around 8 pounds of fat in ice cream alone.
Keep these calories from turning into weight gain by counting them in your overall calorie intake for the day. Most of these things tend to be excess, wasted calories. Opt for drinking a lot of water instead of soft drinks and sugary juice, grill lots of vegetables, make fresh and light salads topped with vinaigrettes, serve fruits such as watermelon and keep your meat intake to one serving per cookout.
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