Spare me the chips! - News, Notes & Quotes - weight management - Brief Article

Bowling Digest, August, 2002 by Lydia Rypcinski

THIS ISSUE'S COVER story debunks the myth that bowlers aren't athletes. But here's a twist on that thought: Can you lose weight by stringing strikes? The answer is yes--if you string lots and lots of strikes.

RealAge.com features the "Real Age Cafe," which lets Internet users determine how many minutes of their favorite activities--including bowling--are needed to bum off a variety of foods. Just log on to www.RealAge.com, click on the "Real Age Cafe," "Diet & Fitness Tools," and "Exercise Estimator" tabs, and follow the directions for selections.

To whet your appetite, here's a sneak preview: Burning off a 12-ounce beer requires 44 minutes of continuous bowling, and an ounce of potato chips doesn't leave your hips until you've bowled 46 minutes non-stop. (Those figures compare to 35 minutes of walking for the beer and 23 minutes of swimming for the chips.) That tofu burger patty, which requires just 28 minutes of bowling, is starting to look more attractive now, isn't it? Bowling fitness expert Dr. Jeff Briggs reports that continuous bowling--with no sitting, resting, drinking, or eating between shots--has been shown to burn off between 288 and 450 calories an hour, depending on such factors as overall fitness level, weight, and other variables. "If a bowler-athlete is bowling every day for about two hours at a time, the metabolic rate is about 3.5, which means that person is burning 3.5 times the number of calories than a normal person would at rest," Briggs explains. "That means that a 160-pound person, on average, will burn about 288 calories an hour bowling continuously."

Briggs' statement is reinforced by a study reported in the California Bowling News, in which a Penn State nutritionist estimated that bowlers bum 100 calories for every 20 minutes of bowling.

So while you may never become "buff" from bowling, you can take comfort from the fact that you are obtaining some health benefits during an extensive practice session.