It’s Friday night; you’ve had a long week and you don’t feel like cooking. You’ve been to one of our gyms around Voorhees, NJ four times this week and you’d like to relax with something tasty. Pizza? Wings? Maybe a hoagie or a burger. After a week pushing yourself to be better, you can afford to kick back and enjoy a meal that probably isn’t in-line with your dietary needs. The thing is, though, you can’t help but wonder– exactly how bad is this for me?

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The truth about food is that no two gyros, sandwiches or other meals are created equal. Even if you get the same platter from the same restaurant two nights in a row, the caloric content, fat content and other nutritional values will never be exactly the same. Generally, we can tell which foods we really shouldn’t be eating, but cheat days are cheat days. Still, it’s nice to know which meals we should really pay the most for.

Here are a few (general) foods and what you would have to pay for them in terms of calories.

 

(Homemade) Cheeseburger- 30 minute jog

The average homemade cheeseburger rounds out to 330 calories. You’d burn that taking a 30-minute jog at a 10-minute mile pace.

 

(Fast Food) Cheeseburger- 1 hour cycling

A fast food cheeseburger (single patty) averages out to 480 calories. You’d burn that much cycling at a moderate pace for one hour.

 

(One Cup) Chocolate Ice Cream- 2 hours and 15 minutes of yoga

A single cup of chocolate ice cream is equivalent to 380 calories. It would take 2 hours and 15 minutes of hatha yoga to burn that off.

 

(20 oz. Draft) Yuengling Lager- 28 minutes of burpees

A single glass of the local favorite is 280 calories. You’d need to do nearly a half hour of burpees to negate those calories.

 

(Large) McDonald’s Fries- 57 minutes of sit-ups

That large order of fries from McDonalds is 510 calories, slightly more than a quarter of the average daily calorie count. You’d need to spend almost an hour doing sit-ups at a vigorous pace to burn the equivalent caloric value.

 

(Half) Chicken Caesar Salad- 33 minute swim

Since a salad’s nutritional values are based on half of what the full salad contains, half of the average salad comes out to around 260 calories. It would take 33 minutes to burn that off in the pool, swimming at a moderate pace.

 

With cookout season in full effect, it’s nice to have an idea of how hard you’ve worked to earn those summertime favorites. If you still have a little more work to do to earn that cheeseburger, Future Fitness is here to help.