It’s no secret that Halloween candy is packed with empty calories, so every piece you eat might add to your gym time as you try to stay fit this season. Some varieties of candy are worse than others, but none will let you enjoy their sweetness guilt-free. If you are wondering what the lowest calorie indulgences are, plain Hershey’s chocolate and peanut M&Ms are among the best choices. Not only do they boast some of the health benefits of chocolate, but peanut M&Ms actually have plain old healthy peanuts at the center, making them far friendlier for the waistline than their peanut butter filled counterparts.
Peanut M&Ms
If you do snack on a fun-sized pack of Peanut M&Ms, you’ll need to run for 8 minutes or cycle for 16 to burn off those 90 calories. You could also lift for 11 minutes and build up some muscle to help you metabolize empty calories a little faster in the future. You could consider doing jumping jacks for 10 minutes to burn off these calories, but you might find that this exercise becomes rather tedious after about 1 minute.
Kit-Kat Bars
You might hold off on breaking off a piece of that Kit-Kat Bar when you consider than just two fun-sized bars contain 210 calories. That means that eating those tiny pieces of candy will have you on the treadmill for 16 minutes at a jogging pace.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Don’t let the presence of peanut butter fool you; Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are not exactly healthy with the addition of nuts, because the peanut butter inside them is heavily sweetened. If you snack on five mini peanut butter cups (not the full sized cups), you will consume about 220 calories, likely in a matter of seconds. This averages out to about 15 minutes of swimming or 39 minutes pedaling at a quick clip on a stationary bike.
Twizzlers
A treat-sized pack of Twizzlers will not do much damage with only 50 calories, but it may be hard to stop at one. If you are able to stick to just one treat pack, you only need to play a 15 minute game of Frisbee or jog for about 4 minutes to burn off the calories.
No matter how you prefer to burn off the calories of Halloween candy, it’s important to keep moving through the fall season to avoid holiday weight gain once Thanksgiving arrives. Any amount of exercise is helpful, so don’t skip a workout just because you can’t burn off all of those candy calories in one session.
