How Many Burpees in a Chocolate Bar?

One of my Facebook friends (who also shares my birthday AND my Myers-Briggs personality type, making us two peas in the proverbial pod) recently posted a little mini-rant about this article on PopSugar.

Ms. Jenny Sugar has calculated how many burpees must be performed to burn off various dietary indulgences. She allows that 'we all need to indulge a little and satisfy our cravings,' but admits that 'sometimes when you try to eat just a little square of dark chocolate, you end up eating the entire bar!'

I feel you, Jenny. Truly. 

So Jenny did some math for us and came up with how many minutes of burpees must be performed to burn off some seriously yummy foods. That dark chocolate bar? One hour of burpees. Whoa.

Burpees are also called squat thrusts. (I don't know why they're called burpees, but my little boys have their theories are and laughing uproariously as I type.) They are also notoriously wicked hard. Just one or two isn't bad, but burpeeing for an hour... ow. Go ahead and try one.

I'll wait.

See? Hard. This is how most people feel about burpees:

Image: pinterest

Before I get into the psychological fly in the ointment, I would like to pop a hole in Ms. Sugar's balloon. I really hate to diss anyone who does math because we all know how much I hate it, but really, how many calories people burn doing anything is SO HIGHLY VARIABLE. I guarantee Tom Brady wouldn't need to do an hour of burpees to burn off that chocolate bar. He's a big guy. He could just toss around a well-inflated football for a few minutes, if he can find one.

(Doh! I'm going to be exiled to Rhode Island for that one!)

Jenny's point, of course, is for us to think long and hard about whether or not we should really eat that yummy-fill-in-the-blank because that is a lot of hard slogging to pay for it. But my FB/birthday/MBTI twin said we should just enjoy a treat from time to time and not get all worked up about 'paying it off,' and I couldn't agree more. Wow, we March 25th INFJs are so in-synch!

One of bday/MBTI twin's friends said she liked the burpee currency because she, like pretty much everyone, hates burpees, so thinking of an indulgence in these terms really gives her pause. And I get that. But still... I hate thinking of exercise as punishment, as penance for enjoying a treat.

So how do you avoid schnarfing down the whole chocolate bar? I find when I limit my sugar intake, I struggle with way fewer cravings that are even asking to be satisfied. When I eat whole, real food, as close to it's natural state as possible, I am far less likely to binge. As for chocolate, I eat the really dark stuff. No binge... it's too intense.

But as a recovering binger, I am still vulnerable, so I just don't keep that stuff in the house. Anything that really tempts me I only buy or make for special occasions, and then I simply.... enjoy it.

No burpees required.