Snacktime

The NFL season is running at max RPM. College football is well underway. Baseball playoffs have begun. Hockey kicks in next week. The NBA preseason starts Saturday, and Major League Soccer is ongoing. Wake up, people! It’s Super Sports Time, that glorious time of year when TV sports reaches its human-centered perihelion.

Super Sports Time means it’s also time to get serious about laying in our TV sports snacks. We’ll need a baseline. The latest World Health Organization recommendation limits sugar to 5 percent of daily caloric intake. So, consuming 2000 calories a day, your sugar intake should be 25 grams or less. How much fat? There are different kinds of fat, but to keep it easy we’ll say 60g per day. Official start time is Sunday. You’ll want to sleep in, make sure you’re tanned, fit, and rested.

AND WE’RE OFF. Spring out of bed, crank up the TV on the way to the bathroom. TV is set to SportsCenter in order to get overnight scores and morning NFL hype.

Better begin with a light breakfast, nothing special, a couple pancakes, (308cal, 10g of fat, 8.8g of sugar). According to calorieking.com, in order to burn up 308 calories I’ll need to walk 85 minutes. Add a touch of butter and a bit of syrup to round out the pancakes. Only 176cal, 8.2g fat, 23g sugar, which translates to another 50 minutes walking.

Like I said, a light breakfast: only fry four pieces of bacon (184cal, 14.2g of fat, 8.8g of sugar) and toast a leftover Dunkin’ Donuts plain bagel (310cal, 1g fat, 7g sugar). It will take 139 minutes of hard walking to burn that off.

Now, to finish the morning fueling with something healthy, to wit: Yoplait Original Yogurt Strawberry Banana in the tiny, six ounce container. Good for 170cal, 5g fat, 27g sugar, which adds up to an extra 47 minutes of walking.

Totals for the morning feed: 1148cal, 38.4g fat, 74.6g sugar, 5 hours, 19 minutes of walking. Not too bad.

It’s too early to start drinking, so why not go the health route with Odwalla Super Fruit Smoothie, 12 ounces of refreshing goodness accompanied by 290cal, 1g fat, 38g sugar? Followed up with a can of Coke: 90cal, 0 fat, 25g sugar. Total count: 380cal, 1g fat, 68g sugar, 105 minutes walking.

Wow, it’s finally time for football. Since universal internet, 200+ cable TV stations, and 1000+ Roku stations have fried everybody’s brain, no one’s going to watch anything that requires actual attention. However, you can monitor FOX, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, FSSD, FS2, NBCSN, CBSSN, the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC, and ACC conference networks, ATP Tennis, golf, sailing, horseracing, boxing, mixed martial arts, hunting, World Fishing Channel, cycling, Formula 1, and wrestling for a warm-up.

It’s coming on to 11 o’clock. No worries, you have a small eight-ounce bag of vanilla-yogurt-coated raisins to snack on: 984cal, 37.8g fat, 143.8g sugar, 273 minutes walking.

Turn to ESPN for the halftime scores. Drop by the World Series of Poker along the way, catch a bit of professional bull-riding, too.

Not too early to think about lunch. What’s a Sunday at home without a Domino’s pepperoni pizza? Limit yourself to four slices. Yum. Yum. That’s 1200cal, 50g fat, 12g sugar, and 333 walking minutes. How about a little ice cream to smooth pizza righteousness out? One serving of Häagen-Dazs vanilla, 540cal, 36g fat, 42g sugar, 150 minutes walking.

Yes, it is time for beer. This means you’ll have to get up, walk to the kitchen, retrieve beer from the refrigerator, find a bottle opener, and walk back to the couch. Exhausting. Better get two while you’re in the kitchen: 352cal, 0g fat, 28g sugar, 98 minutes walking.

Time passes. The late NFL games enter halftime and afternoon doldrums have set in. Perhaps a snack to perk up. What could be better than a nice big bowl of Pop-Secret Extra Butter? Three tablespoons of unpopped will pop into 180 calories, 13g fat, 0g sugar. But here’s the bingo: it has 6g of trans fat, an evil kind of killer fat, so bad for you it’s hard to find. Add 50 minutes walking.

Totals for lunch and afternoon snack: 3346cal, 123.8g fat, 313.8g sugar, good for 935 walking minutes.

Grand total for the day. 4494cal, 162.2g of fat, 370.8g of sugar, 1256 walking minutes. You’ll note that none of the foods are exotic, they’re ordinary, off-the-shelf, mainstream eats.

Yet to come, dinner, dessert, and after-dessert snack for the Sunday-night game. I think we can conservatively double the previous count for a grand total of 8988cal, 324.4g fat, 741.6g sugar, 42 hours walking for the day.

Bon appétit.