Had a lovely visit from my brother and family on Saturday afternoon. They’d just been to McDonald’s to pick up some dinner. They have a promotion on at the moment where you can win free food and my nephew won a free Big Mac! They left after a couple of hours and I noticed William had left his voucher on our kitchen bench. I texted him to say thanks for the Big Mac and he replied saying I could have it. It’s very nice of him to say that but I replied with ‘Thanks anyway but do you know how many calories are in a Big Mac?’

I did a bit of research yesterday and thought I’d share this with you today. There are a reported 540 calories in one Big Mac. Just under half of those are saturated fats and the other half are split into carbs and protein. I know from my weekly parkrun that I burn just over 400 calories, not enough to burn off one Big Mac!

Here’s a list of things you can do to burn off one Big Mac and the time you need to carry it out for. Thanks to Men’s Health for the list, obviously these figures won’t be accurate to your body weight but it gives a rough indication of an average person.

• 48 minutes sit-ups
• 65 minutes shovelling
• 32 minutes hard rowing
• 111 minutes light rowing
• 48 minutes walking at 5mph
• 117 minutes walking at 3mph
• 35 minutes rock climbing
• 48 minutes pull-ups
• 48 minutes playing beach volleyball
• 55 minutes playing badminton
• 65 minutes cycling at 10mph
• 86 minutes playing golf
• 39 minutes Tae Kwon Do
• 65 minutes pummelling a punch bag
• 26 minutes running up stairs
• 32 minutes trail running
• 77 minutes playing cricket
• 39 minutes skipping
• 39 minutes playing water polo
• 97 minutes playing table tennis
• 46 minutes mountain biking
• 39 minutes swimming crawl
• 155 minutes stretching
• 43 minutes on the step machine
• 32 minutes playing squash
• 77 minutes skateboarding
• 39 minutes playing 11-a-side football
• 65 minutes lifting weights hard
• 129 minutes lifting weights moderate
• 18 minutes running on a treadmill at 8mph on a 15% incline
• 86 minutes dancing
• 39 minutes playing rugby
• 39 minutes karate

It makes you think doesn’t it? Something that takes about five minutes to eat means you need to do at least the above just to burn it off. Granted, I quite like the taste of a Big Mac but I’ll think twice about the next time I eat one. It may be free but no thanks William. When I give the voucher back to him next week I might let him read this article.

Stay healthy,