6 hours running to burn calories of the biryani meal

A typical friday or a weekend lunch for many hyderabadis is spent with either colleagues, friends or family and the preferred dish on the menu is the “all time favourite hyderabadi chicken biryani!”. It’s often accompanied with a soft drink and a dessert – again the hyderabadi favourite “double ka meetha”. For a hardcore biryani fan, a week without a biryani is unimaginable! But have you ever wondered what it takes to burn off the calories from your hyderabadi meal?

Well, we did a bit of research and figured that one would need to walk approximately 34 kms!! to burn the calories from a typical hyderabadi biryani meal. That’s just 8 kms short of a full marathon!

Another way to put it is that you need to walk for 6 hours at a speed of 5.6kph to shed off that one meal . this is for one meal on one day, imagine if you ate this or similar meals more frequently!!!

Here’s the infographic on the “Marathon Meal”

Nutritive values –

*All values are calculated for a male weighing 70 kgs

It means that this meal provides a whopping 1636 kcal at one time which is just 400 kcal short of your estimated daily requirement of 2000 kcal (considering we are sedentary) .

Although as a stand- alone food item, we would rate Hyderabadi biryani as a complete and wholesome meal providing the ideal ratios of Carbohydrates (53% of total calories) , protein (25% of total calories) and fat (20% of total calories ). But the portion size is too large. It would be best to consume half of the serving of 500g .(refer to our blog on portion control)

Double ka meetha is a sinful indulgence providing little benefit to our health. It contains fried bread soaked in full fat milk and loads of sugar. There can definitely be a way to modify the recipe or chose another sweet dish.

A soft drink as an accompaniment or otherwise has nothing but empty calories. We have discussed before also that cola beverages do not provide any nutritional benefits and rather take away more from the body. A better option would be fresh lime water!

Occasional indulgence is fine but if the biryani meal features more than once every week as a part of your diet then you better be running a marathon every week! Unless you want to flaunt or nurture all those calories on your waistline forever…

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REFERENCES

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/physical-activity-calories-burn#sthash.cHIcUUGO.dpuf

Author: drpoojachhawcharia

Dr Pooja Chhawcharia is the Senior Nutritionist at eKincare with over 7 years of experience in Nutrition education, diet counseling and research. She is a Registered Dietician with the Indian Dietetic Association and Certified Diabetes Educator recognized by the International Diabetes federation . She is also interested in ancillary sciences such as Yoga and Naturopathy. View all posts by drpoojachhawcharia