A Calorie Saved is 3 Minutes Earned
Do your kids beg to launch a penny and a quarter down that wide mouth container at the mall and see which one “wins” the race? We all know THE MALL wins the race. While I’m game for most things once, I would not allow my kids to waste their money (or actually mine) to send coin after coin ‘down the drain’ to add up for someone else. I feel the same about adding empty calories to my waistline.
I was pondering strategies to avoid eating candy before, during, and after Halloween. Some good suggestions to save ourselves from the empty calories can be found at Web MD’s ‘10 Tricks to Avoid Halloween Candy Temptations’ and Associated Content’s ‘How Parents Can Avoid Overindulging in Halloween Candy. I think my favorite suggestion was to leave the empty wrappers out on your desk (or the counter for stay-at-home-moms) to keep in mind how many of those “fun size” bars you’ve enjoyed today. A fun sized butterfinger is 103 calories and takes about a 28 minute walk to burn it back off. When I look at it like that it doesn’t seem fun to me at all.
So is the person who saves the penny really better off in the long run? They are if they develop a lifestyle of saving and disciplined spending. If they consistently weigh their options and make wise choices, they will have many, more appealing choices later. Just like we can put on weight by making lots of little choices, we can keep it off the same way. So for each fun size candy you don’t enjoy this Halloween, you have saved yourself 30 minutes of walking just to break even. You could take the walk anyway and burn off last years candy, or relax and enjoy the time you earned doing something you like. Happy Savings!
