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The Super Bowl has become much more than a football game: It's the second- biggest day for food consumption in the United States after Thanksgiving. So, to choose the most splurgeworthy foods, here are the exercise equivalents (based on a 155-pound person) for some of your favorite football snacks. Keep in mind that we all have a daily caloric budget, so it is only after you use your daily budget that the exercise equivalents kick in.
Chips are pretty expensive, calorically. A handful of Cooler Ranch Doritos: 140 calories.
Diet pro: Eat one at a time, and don't put out huge bowls of them — make it so you have to get up each time you want more than six chips.
Having two slices of Pizza Hut's large stuffed-crust pizza means you're looking at more than 800 calories. That word "stuffed" should give you a clue.
Diet pro: Get thin-crust pizza with veggies, and eat it for lunch or dinner instead of a halftime snack.
Yes, beer has calories: about 150 for 12 ounces.
Diet pro: There are some great light beers out there. Do a taste test before the game.
A 6-inch sub with salami, pepperoni, ham, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise is about 650 calories.
Diet pro: Go for low-fat cheese and skip the mayo.
The wings are fried, and that blue-cheese dressing can be caloric suicide. Just five wings with 3 tablespoons of blue-cheese dressing: 599 calories.
Diet pro: Use hot sauce instead of blue cheese. Make the wings yourself. Go skinless, and bake them. With all that football action, you probably won't even notice the difference.
Ribs are good, but they're packed with calories. They're fatty, and the sauce is sugary. And don't kid yourself, cheerleading is serious, hard work.
Diet pro: Make them yourself. Trim all fat before and after cooking, and — instead of coating with an excessive amount of sauce beforehand — partially cook them loaded with seasonings, brush them lightly with sauce and then finishing cooking.
It's about 18 miles to Dolphin Stadium, which is what it would take to burn off the chips and dip. Each chip is about 15 calories. For each dip of Ruffles French onion dip, add another 55 to 60 calories. Grand total: as many as 600 calories.
Diet pro: Try a low-calorie dip (2 tablespoons: 44 calories) or make your own with nonfat yogurt or mayo.
At 280 calories, 1 ounce of this mix is still high in calories even though it's lower in fat than chips.
Diet pro: Don't eat it by the handful, or skip it and go for low-cal microwave popcorn instead. Even better, make it air-popped and use a margarine spray.
One deep-fried chicken breast and one thigh are about 660 calories.
Diet pro: Make your own chicken with breading. Go skinless and bake it instead of frying.
A 16-ounce bowl of chili packed with beef and beans comes to about 500 calories. A few tablespoons of sour cream and some shredded cheese add 150 calories more, for a grand total of 650 calories.
Diet pro: Use ground sirloin or white-meat turkey, or make it vegetarian. Skip the sour cream and cheese, or go for no- or low-fat versions.
This is a serious dip with refried beans, olives, guacamole, sour cream and cheese, and it costs about 90 to 105 calories (30 to 35 calories per tablespoon) with an additional 42 calories for three chips. The grand total: 147 calories.
Diet pro: If you make the dip, use low-fat cheese and sour cream, and black beans, not refried. Or you could switch to salsa: 2 tablespoons have only about 15 calories. Also, go for light or baked chips instead of fried.
Charles Stuart Platkin is a nutrition and public-health advocate, and author of "Breaking the FAT Pattern" (Plume, 2006). Sign up for the free Diet Detective newsletter at www.dietdetective.com.
