DIET | DETECTIVE^®

So, part of me wishes I was a bigger Dancing With the Stars fan because it’s the only darn thing on television right now. (Come on, networks…just pony up the internet residuals so I can have my shows back, pleeeease?) The other part me wishes I were actually on DWTS, because everyone on that show seems to end up slimming down.

Most recently, semi-finalist Jennie Garth revealed that she’s lost ten pounds since joining the show. And that’s a deceiving number—she’s gained a lot of muscle, which weighs more than fat, so ultimately she’s dropped two pants sizes. And that’s without dieting.

In fact, she’s doing the exact opposite—eating whenever she’s hungry, even if it’s the wee hours. “The other night, I went into the kitchen at 2am , cracked open a Sprite and in the dark I ate a bag of Doritos,” she says. Sounds like a rough binge, right? But consider this: Assuming she stuck to a modest eight-ounce serving of Sprite and a snack-sized (2.75-oz) bag of Doritoes, she would have only consumed 481 calories.

Now, Jennie is 5’5”, and she says she wears size-27 jeans nowadays. So we can pretty safely assume she weighs somewhere around 135 pounds. According to the Diet Detective Activity Calculator, she would need around 86 minutes’ worth of fast ballroom dancing to burn that off. She’s clocking in at 360 minutes a day, so she’s quadrupling her exercise needs for that snack attack.

But just for fun, let’s pretend she actually polished off a 12-ounce bottle of Sprite and the whole family-sized bag of Nacho Cheesier chips (13oz). That would be a much more daunting 1964 calories, which would require 351 minutes of fast ballroom dancing. Believe it or not, she’s still in the clear.

The point, of course, is not to gorge on Doritos and atone for it later. The point is that regular exercise can counteract the occasional midnight snack mishap—so no matter what diet you’re on, try to squeeze in some exercise too.

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written by Kara Wahlgren, November 18, 2007

Full disclosure (since I put enough celebs on blast for THEIR size): I'm 5'0" and a size 27, but let's just say I have at least a stone on you. Scales are never kind to people with muscle! But the actual number on Jennie's scale isn't all that important -- even if she weighed in at 110, she'd only need an additional 15 minutes of dancing to burn off her smaller snacks, or an extra hour for the big binge. Point is, an active lifestyle can be fab damage control -- if you eat according to your level of activity, you don't have to worry about every single calorie. (Even the nacho cheesier ones.)

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written by tw, November 18, 2007

There is no way that Jennie weighs 135 and looks the way she does even if she gained some muscle. I am 5'5 and 110 and I wear a size 26 jean. I am a competitive cyclist and I have muscle so I know that Jennie's weight has to be no over 120.