Health: Thanksgiving: The Day After

Tips for your post-meal workout plan — guess what? You don’t have to kill yourself, either!

Your average Thanksgiving meal will run you between 1,500 to 5,000 calories, depending how many times you head back for seconds (and thirds). When you’re polishing off almost double your daily alottment of needed calories in one sitting (on average we’re supposed to chow down about 2,000 a day), it’s easy to see why the scale climbs a few pounds.

Your average Thanksgiving meal will run you between 1,500 to 5,000 calories, depending how many times you head back for seconds (and thirds). When you’re polishing off almost double your daily alottment of needed calories in one sitting (on average we’re supposed to chow down about 2,000 a day), it’s easy to see why the scale climbs a few pounds.

Thought you could count darting from sales rack to sales rack on Black Friday as your post-pig-out workout? Dream on, shopaholics. It would take 4 hours of some serious sweating in Spinning class or six hours of walking to burn 2000 calories. (Yeah, so if you fill your plate twice, double that and make that 8 hours of peddaling your guts out and 12 hours of putting one foot in front of the other — briskly!)

OK, want the good news? You don’t have to spend your entire vacation at the gym to kill those extra calories. “People come in after the holidays and go crazy trying to burn it all off,” says Jamil Watson, a personal trainer at LA Fitness in Bala Cynwyd. “They just need to set their own pace and take their time.”

Set a daily goal for yourself to burn 250 more calories than you normally do. For you gym rats, just modify your normal routine by adding on a few extra minutes to your regular workout each day for an extra week. For those of you who aren’t used to regular sweat sessions, set a goal to burn 250 calories each day (That’s only a half hour on the treadmill walking at about a 4.0. — pop in Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation or another holiday flick and the time will fly.)

“Working out after the holidays is kind of like rehab,” Jamil laughs. “You just have to ease back into things.” So, enjoy your holiday. Soak up those days off from work and go shopping like a mad woman! Just aim for steady, totally do-able extra 250-calorie burn each day. It will make jumping into that new black dress you just bought — at half-off — even better.