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SHAPE UP |
OK, I almost regret doing this; however, in the spirit of the holidays — and good fun — I wanted to give you a sense of what you're going to be eating over the next few weeks. The idea is to get some perspective on what a calorie means in terms of what it will take to burn it off so that maybe — just maybe — you'll be able to have fun and eat responsibly.
Those tiny little slices may seem harmless, but take a closer look. See those little white flecks, the ones that take up a good 25 percent to 50 percent of the slice? Those are little bits of lard. So, if you plan to go to town on the salami appetizers, I hope you've also gone to town on your gift-buying.
Fit tip: If you have a salami weakness, at least make sure to skip its best friends — the crackers and cheese. One cracker adds 16 calories, and just a half-ounce of cheddar tacks on another 55. So if you really want the salami, enjoy it by itself.
Those little pizzas with lots of cheese (and sometimes pepperoni) disappear so fast it seems they were never there, but your waistline knows the truth. And even chasing your kids around the mall won't burn enough calories to keep you trim.
Fit tip: Make 'em yourself. Toast pita bread with a sprinkle of parmesan or part-skim mozzarella and some low-calorie tomato sauce. Then throw on veggies and enjoy a low-cal, easy-to-make snack.
A scoop of stuffing made with eggs, butter and sausage can range from 350 to 500 calories, which means you'll be doing pirouettes, spins, jumps and plies for 65 minutes nonstop.
Fit tip: Prepare the stuffing with croutons, chopped apple, celery and onion, and moisten it with chicken broth.
Eggnog packs about 340 to 460 calories. Typically it includes raw egg, heavy cream and brandy. Exercise-wise, you're looking at 97 minutes of continuous tree decorating — up and down the ladder, finding the ornaments and reaching up to the top.
Fit tip: Make your eggnog with skim milk — at least you'll deduct the heavy cream from this diet disaster equation.
A full hour of addressing and signing cards burns the 60 calories in a single cane.
Fit tip: Lick, don't bite (it will last longer) — and don't start popping those red and green M&Ms while practicing your penmanship.
At only 45 calories per 1-ounce roll, these might not seem like a bad deal — after all, a Rockette burns those calories in just six minutes on stage. The problem with those mini rolls is that they're relatively insubstantial, so you eat more, and they're often fried.
Fit tip: Steam or bake them — don't fry. And at your holiday party, avoid the "have-to-eat-it-NOW" mentality: you see the platter and make a beeline for it, piling three of anything that looks good onto a napkin to make sure you get enough of the good stuff.
They're little, and they seem pretty healthy, right? Unfortunately, even soaking olives in their own heart-healthy oil leaves them dripping with excess calories — 150 for 1 ounce or four olives, to be precise. That's the equivalent of 51 minutes of cooking, prepping, timing, slicing, arranging and serving at your annual holiday gala.
Fit tip: Cracked green olives have only eight calories apiece, so if you like the oil-soaked variety, mix them up. That way you can eat a few more without overdoing it.
Charles Stuart Platkin is a nutrition and public-health advocate. Write to info@thedietdetective.com.
