These Foods Are Made for Walkin'

The other day a co-worker sent a rather disturbing e-mail – a checklist of traditional holiday foods, along with their caloric content. As you go down the list, checking off one delectable goodie after another, the site adds up the grim total and provides your walking papers – an estimation of how many miles you’d have to walk to burn all those calories.

So being a curious sort, I figured I’d play along. Knowledge is power, they say, so it might help to know what exactly we’re getting ourselves into as we bounce to a party here, a gathering there.

I opened the Holiday Calorie Calculator and imagined I was at a festive party, the foods and beverages spread before me. I felt a little drool escape as visions of eggnog and stuffing, of turkey and cookies, of pies and green been casserole danced in my head.

So I began clicking down the list, checking off the most likely culinary culprits. Eggnog? You bet. Glass of wine? Sure, why not. Mixed raw vegetables? Probably not, but I’ll feel better if I say yes. Mixed nuts, chips, dips, crackers and cheese, a handful of Chex mix? You have to have appetizers, right? It’s rude not to, really.

I assumed I’d have a salad with dinner, just to balance everything out. Then came the main course: turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes (hold the gravy; I’m watching my calories, here), green bean casserole, sweet potatoes and a dinner roll.

Dessert? Well, I’m pretty full, but what the heck. So I took a piece of pecan pie, had a snickerdoodle cookie and cleansed my palate with a candy cane. Heck, I’m as sophisticated as the next guy.

The final damage was, to put it mildly, unsettling. I had consumed 3,436 virtual calories, which, according to the calculator, meant that I had to walk 34.36 miles to get them off. That means I’d have to walk from Stuart to Vero Beach just to burn those calories.

Should I care that much? I can always buy bigger pants, right? Besides, an article on msnbc.com cited a New England Journal of Medicine study that suggests we may not gain as much weight as we think during the six-week holiday stretch.

The problem is, according to the study, we often don’t take those pounds off which leads to further problems down the road. That’s why we’re better off trying to limit the damage now, rather than walking all the way to Maine later.

For some helpful tips on how to do just that, listen to Rosemarie Lembo James, clinical director of nutrition at Martin Memorial, on this week’s Martin Memorial Healthcast.

--Scott Samples