WARNING: Eating Candy Results in A LOT of Math for Me

This is an old picture of me eating popcorn that Binderclips made on the campfire. We were camping at Holland State Park in Holland, MI.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween and didn't eat too much candy! Last night Binderclips and I were hanging out and I told him I just wanted one bite size MilkyWay candy bar (again, just 1). It's at that point that he decided that he needed to go to the store, then proceeded to come home with an entire bag of MilkyWay fun size candy bars AND an entire bag of 3 Musketeers also. The serving sizes/calories for the fun size snack bars equates to the following:


MilkyWay (Serving Size 2 bars)

Calories: 160

Fat Calories: 50 (or 6g)

Carbohydrates: 24g

Protein: 1g



3 Musketeers (Serving Size 3 bars)

Calories: 190

Fat Calories: 50 (or 6g)

Carbohydrates: 34g

Protein: 1g


Why does this matter? Well, any time I consider eating any kind of sweets I review this information as well as the ingredients. For the purpose of this post I'm going to not focus on the ingredients because, let's face it folks, the ingredients are not good (both include hydrogenated oils and corn syrup as well as other not-so-favorable stuff).

Any who, do you ever read the calorie information and wonder what on earth it all means? Well, I'm going to break it down for you. Basically, the grams listed on the packaging are converted to calories by multiplying the grams of protein, fat, and carbs by the number of calories yielded per gram of each nutrient.

So, for fats - each gram is multiplied by 9 to give you the number of calories. For carbs and proteins - each gram is multiplied by 4 to give you the number of calories per serving. Therefore, for the MilkyWay:

Fat calories = 6 grams X 9 calories per gram = 54 calories from fat

Carbohydrate calories = 24 grams X 4 calories per gram = 96 calories from carbs

Protein calories = 1 gram X 4 calories per gram = 4 calories from protein

Total calories = 54 + 96 + 4 = 154 calories*

If you're still thinking 'So what?' - think about this: To lose one pound you have to burn 3500 calories in one week, or in other words, burn 500 calories per day for each day of the week (500 X 7 = 3500). Consider that running or walking a mile roughly results in 100 calories being burned. So, if you were going to create a deficit of 500 calories per day by exercise alone - you would need to run or walk 5 miles A DAY. The better approach is to create this deficit by eating 250 less calories per day and to burn 250 calories by also doing some type of physical activity.

Anyways, do you see what happens to me?! I become a calorie calculating weirdo. Sigh. My best bet is to stay away from the candy and sweets, otherwise I am constantly doing math. While I do think that focusing on calorie counting isn't the best way to go, it's just what happens when I eat crappy food. In addition, when I'm on the treadmill I am constantly calculating things....it's apparently just a problem I have. Oh well! I hope your Monday is treating you well. I'll post the Hoover Dam pictures next time.

*Total calories listed on the package also take into consideration fiber and therefore, may result in your calculations not necessarily being what is posted on the packaging. Also, the FDA allows some wiggle room on what is posted for calories on packaging - this results in some discrepancies in regards to what is posted verses what you calculate as well.