Lemon Drops

We all love our snacks. I like Brach’s Lemon Drops. When I look closely at the package, the serving size is four pieces, and the calories for that serving are 70.

Not much to think about, right? Recently I started wearing a pedometer on my belt. It’s supposed to count the steps you take throughout the day, or more accurately, during short walks.

There’s a little swinging pendulum inside that strikes a switch that adds up your steps, but it records any sudden lateral movement, such as shifting your weight in your chair, or accidentally hitting it with your hand. There is a reset button that zeros out the counter, and a button that switches to different numbers: Steps, Calories, Kilometers, and Miles.

The Pedometer automatically calculates the calories you burn based on the steps you take.

One night I went on a very long walk. According to my pedometer I took 5402 steps or walked 2.4 miles, and burned 181 Calories. We’re supposed to walk ten thousand steps a day.

I had to load the numbers into Microsoft Excel and do some calculating. If this was correct, every time I ate a Brach’s Lemon Drop, I would have to get out and walk an extra 416 yards just to burn it off.

My calculations are based entirely on the pedometer’s programming. If you sit down and eat a bag of any hard candy where each piece is around 17 calories and there are 60 in a bag, you’re looking at a brisk 14 miles of walking if you want to work it off and keep the weight you have, or you must cut the same amount of calories out of your next regular meal.

Just imagine that for every calorie you consume, you will burn it off by walking about 24 yards (according to my little pedometer’s calculations), twenty four yards per calorie.