Just how long does it take to burn off the calories from that fast food lunch you just ate?

It is no news that the western world is eating it's self to death out of laziness.  Yes, I know that sounds harsh, but most blame it on lack of time and too much stress.  Yes, we are all stressed with work, homes, kids, schools, after school activities, etc..  So, grabbing a McDonald's for lunch or ordering a pizza for dinner is so quick and easy and it has become the norm.  Moms and Dads tend to take the easy option and avoid planning home cooked meals due to lack of time.

A new study from Texas has found that if information as to how much exercise you would need to do in order to burn off the fast food you just ate is given a long with the calorie information of that meal then the consumers tend to make healthier choices.  It is a plan that has been devised to "scare" people into eating better.

So how long does it take?

We all burn calories in different ways, an overweight person will always burn more than a normal weight person.  The exercise information (based on a 68kg person) should be as follows:

• McDonald's Egg McMuffin - 300 calories - 32 minutes of running at 5mph
• Starbucks Cinnamon Roll - 500 calories and 85 minutes of dancing - nonstop
• Dunkin' Donuts Cholocalte Frosted Donut - 230 calories and 1 hour of walking at 3mph
• Wendy's Large French Fries - 540 calories and 77 minutes of cycling at 10-12 mph
• Taco Bell Beef Burrito Supreme - 410 calories and 70 minutes of dancing.
• Domino's slice of medium cheese pizza - 210 calories PER SLICE and 22 minutes of cycling at 12-14mph for each slice you ate.
• McDonald's Mighty Kids Meal of Double Cheeseburger, Fries and chocolate milk - 840 calories and a solid 4 hours and 3 minutes of frisbee-playing - do you really want to put your child through that?

The study, carried out by the Texas Christian University, to find new ways to help people make better choices, proposed adding the exercise information to the calorie information on the menus.  The principal investigator on the study, Meena Shah says that hers is the first study centered on examining the effects of knowing how long you would have to walk at a fast pace in order to burn off those calories, the results were presented at the Meeting for Experimental Biology 2013 held in Boston in April.

For the study, 300 men and women were recruited between 18 and 30 years of age who were invited to eat at fast food restaurants.  Without explaining the purpose of the study, a menu was assigned to each participant at random.  All the menus had the same appearance and consisted of a hamburger, chicken nuggets, salad, french fries, dessert, soda and water.  However there were 3 things that differentiated them:

1. The first menu was accompanied by calorie information and the amount of exercise needed to burn off what was chosen and then eaten by the participant.
2. The second menu was accompanied solely by the amount of calories associated to it.
3. The third menu didn't have any accompanying information.

I think it is fairly easy to guess that the participants that ate the fewest calories were those who chose from menu Nº1, followed by those who were given menu Nº2 and those that consumed the most calories were those who had menu Nº3.  The reasoning behind this is that for the general public, caloric information for food is difficult to understand, however the minutes or hours of physical exercise needed to burn it off is much easier to apply to daily life as it is easy to visualize the effort needed to eliminate those calories.

Meena Shah said that a lot of the participants were surprised to see just how much physical exercise is needed to burn off the calories from some of the menu options: 

"For example, a woman would have to walk vigorously for about 2 hours to burn off the calories from a double quarter pounder with cheese".

However, the authors have stated that the sample group was made up of people under the age of 30, which means that it would be erroneous to suggest that the results are representative for all the consumers of these types of foods.  Therefore, the team intends to repeat the study with a more diverse group with older people.

Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Wear your conscience on your wrist.

Have you ever wondered how many calories you burn per day?  How much you move or how well you sleep?

If you have read any of my previous posts, and I hope you have, you will know that 3 things are essential for optimal health:

1. Exercise/ perpetual movement
2. Diet
3. Sleep

These are the 3 golden rules.  Exercise and perpetual motion are key to combating our sedentary lifestyles, diet is key to nourishing the body and sleep is essential for mental and physical well being.

There are several gadgets available to help you monitor the 3 golden rules and, as it turns out, they tend to motivate you into taking action.

This is something I have witnessed close at hand.  I gave my husband a Jawbone Up band for his birthday last month, and believe me it has worked wonders and achieved changes in him that I had failed to do until now.  I have a Nike Fuel Band that he gave me for my birthday - the Jawbone Up wasn't available back in March, so I know the benefits of wearing your conscience on your wrist, as these gadgets are just that.  Your conscience! 

You set a daily goal of "Fuel" you have to generate or steps you have to take depending on which tracker you decide to use.  And believe me, you really want to achieve that goal everyday otherwise you tend to feel that you have failed!  These gadgets really do get you moving and also make you more aware of just what you are putting into your body during each day.

One of the things Nutritionists like myself know is that if a patient writes down exactly what they eat every day they are far more conscious of how much they are eating and are much more successful in following a weight loss program and in keeping off the weight they have lost.  These new gadgets are very good at keeping people mindful of what they are doing and eating at the touch of a button.

Now my general diet is healthy but my husband was finding it difficult in his stress filled life to stick to eating healthy foods, especially if you consider he travels a lot and different cultures with different ways of eating make it much more difficult to stick to what he knows is the right way to eat.  

Jawbone Up:

I find this to be a very complete tracker.  It monitors the steps you take, the calories you burn, the

calories you ingest and your sleep patterns.  Whoever said that too much information is not a good thing?  It is also discrete and can be worn by anyone in any situation.  It also gives you advice and sends you motivational messages through an app.  You have to input your food and drink intake via the app and it calculates the calories you have consumed.  It does not have a display on the band and it doesn't sync via bluetooth - you have to plug it in to your smart phone in order to download information.  You can compare with your friends through the app and see who is the most active and who is leading the healthiest lifestyle.  The sleep monitor tells you how long it took you to go to sleep and how deeply you slept during the sleep cycles.  The information is then presented in the app and it gives you advice on things you can change to improve.  You can also connect other gadgets such as the Withings scales to monitor your weight through the Jawbone app.

Nike Fuel Band:

Slightly less discrete visually and has less options.  It monitors the steps you take and how many calories your burn and how much "fuel" you produce through your activity.  This "fuel" is not useful for anything it is just a way of gauging how active you are.  It doesn't monitor your sleep patterns and there is no place on the app to input your food intake.  It does have a display on the band so you don't need to sync it to the app to see how you are doing during the day.  The app shows when you were most active during each day and how many days you have been active, plus the calories burned and the number of steps you have taken each day.  Of the two this is the simplest device and I sync it once a day via bluetooth which is very convenient.  You set a daily goal of how much "fuel" you want to achieve with a minimum of 2000 and once you reach your goal you can see just how far past that goal you can go.  The app also gives you motivational messages when you sync and you can compete with your friends to see just who is the most active.

I put these two first as they are the ones we have used and tested at home.  However, there are many more gadgets out there that do the same or similar:

The Fitbit Flex is another band, I did buy this one for my husband but ended up taking it back the next day, it was very chunky and a bit uncomfortable.  It also monitors steps taken, distance travelled, calories burned and via the app you can input food and drink intake and monitor sleep patterns.

One to watch out for is the Withings Smart Activity Tracker, this is a tiny clip on monitor that you wear.  Withings, as far as I am concerned, is a great company producing many handy health gadgets such as the scales that connect via WIFI to your computer or the blood pressure monitor you can plug into your smart phone.  The Smart Activity Tracker measures sleep quality, food intake, movement and pulse rate with a touch sensitive front and a heart rate sensor in the back.  It connects via bluetooth to the Withings Health Mate app.

The Fitbit One, is another cool gadget doing much the same: tracks steps/ movement, distance travelled, calories burned and sleep patterns.  One thing this one has that the others don't is that it has a built in altimeter which allows you to factor in stairs and hill-climbs for better accuracy in the calories burned area.  This also syncs via bluetooth to your computer or smartphone.  This is not a band, this you can keep in your pocket or clip on to your belt, so no need to wear it on your wrist if you don't like that kind of thing.

However, what all these have in common is that they literally are the voice of your conscience.  They really do get you moving and monitoring your food and drink intake.  People have found that they have lost weight and generally tend to move a lot more just by wearing one of these - let's face it, you certainly don't want your app telling you that you didn't reach your daily goal!  That would be really annoying!

Social Nutrition:
You can make an appointment to improve your health with Social Nutrition either in person (Madrid) or online (Skype).  Just send an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com