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It may only take two minutes to eat a piece of chocolate cake, but it could take you up
to two hours to burn it off. One of our viewers wants to know, "what is the exercise equivalent
of eating a piece of chocolate cake or a handful of chips?" Well, let's start with your calorie
allowance. We all have a calorie allowance of roughly the amount of calories that it
takes each day to keep you healthy, for growth and development, and to maintain your current
weight. When you exceed that calorie allowance, and you eat more than you need, you either
have to burn it off through exercise or it gets stored as fat. So, keeping in mind that
once you go over that, we need to really think twice about the foods that we choose. So if
you choose one of my little treats here, I have a handful of chips and a cookie, you
know these go down really quickly, but they could take a fair amount of time to burn off
if you're past your calorie allowance. But, we're all individuals, and the amount of exercise
or that exercise equivalent is going to vary depending on your age, your sex and how much
you weigh. But, let me just give you some rough ideas of these numbers. This handful
of chips, 26 minutes of dancing. A slice of chocolate cake, either 2 hours or walking
or 48 minutes of biking. A candy bar, 32 minutes of swimming. A soda, 48 minutes of yoga. So
you see that something that you can eat real quickly might take a fair amount of time to
burn off. So use these numbers to make good choices. Maybe spilt that cake with a friend.
Maybe only have a few bites of it. But if you want to do the exercise, well there are
all kinds of charts available online that can tell you exactly, for you, how much exercise
it would take to eat that double cheeseburger or french fries or these chips. But, use the
information to empower you and help you make better decisions so that you can maintain
a healthy weight.