Calculator showing how much exercise it takes to burn off fast food will ruin your lunch plans
While many of us try to eat healthy on a daily basis, sometimes our busy lifestyle gets in the way. Enter fast food.
But all those calories, high salt and high fat foods can take a toll on your body, which is why many people opt for good exercise over restrictive diets. However, you might be surprised at how much activity you need to balance the scales.
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The U.S. based health website, HomeRemedyShop.com, created a calculator to figure out how much exercise you need to burn off a fast food meal, taking menus from seven different fast food giants including McDonalds and Taco Bell.
To calculate your work out plan, you simply need to enter your weight and the meal you ate at one of the fast food places listed.
The website uses the following equation to calculate how much time and energy you would need to get the calorie count back down to zero:
Calories = METS (calories/kg*hours) x Weight (kg) x Time (hours)
The site also calculated how to get the factor for METS:
In the above equation, the energy cost of a given activity is represented by the constant “METS,” which denotes the activity’s “metabolic equivalent.” To find the hours of activity needed to equate with the caloric intake during a night out, we rearranged the above equation to solve for hours: Time = Calories/(MET x Weight)
The website does not take into account a person's muscle mass, body fat or the fact that everything -- even sleeping and breathing -- also burns calories.
After all, we don't just float around in space after eating a fast food meal. For instance, if you live in a big city, a fast food meal will probably be punctuated by a hurried walk/jog back to the office several blocks away. However, this more specific type of calculation is highly dependent on the individual.
Instead, this calculator simply focuses on weight and caloric intake (which can be over 1,000 per meal). This leads to some pretty laborious work out plans for just about everyone.
Here are a few examples as you consider your cheat day ruined:
Even your morning latte from Starbucks is under scrutiny.
The site did some average calculations based on research done by the CDC, which note the average weight of an American man as 195.5 lbs. and the American woman as 166.2 lbs.
These sample work out plans only factor in the average weights for Americans, plus some of the higher-caloric choices from fast food places. If you have a different weight or tend to choose healthier options, you will receive a different result.
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Topics Health
Andrea Romano -- comedy writer, craft enthusiast, lady -- was a Watercooler Reporter. She worked as an intern at Mashable beginning in January 2014. Andrea recently completed her Masters degree in Media Studies and Film from The New School and writes sketch comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade and The People's Improv Theatre. She once watched three Paul Rudd movies in a row on a bicoastal flight and didn't realize it until she landed. She does things like that a lot. Twitter: @theandrearomano
