Hike Off the Turkey? Don’t Think So

The good news, for people planning to hike off the calories of a Thanksgiving dinner, is that GORP offers a handy state-by-state directory of scenic hikes, publishing the mileage of each hike and mentioning a few of each hike’s most pleasing features. The bad news is the math.  Geezer has done the math. He has consulted a calories burned chart to learn how many calories hiking can possibly burn for a 160 to 170 pound man, and he is not pleased to learn that it is just under 8 calories a minute. Curiously however, he takes some satisfaction in noting that these are far more than the 5.6 calories he would burn if he were having “active sex.”  Next, Geezer looks at the calories brought to your body by a typical Thanksgiving meal, and sees the number 4,575. That’s right: 4,575. A serious number of calories. Dividing 8 into 4,575, he learns that to return to the caloric starting line on which he poised as he sat down to the Thanksgiving table, he will have to hike for 572 minutes, or nearly 10 hours, returning home sometime shortly before dawn. Consulting once again the calories burned chart, he considers that one alternative to hiking for 10 hours would be having “active sex” for a 13.6 hours. Geezer sees that as problematic. He is cool with whatever. This wouldn’t be the first time he has been told to take a hike.