Don't be a Turkey on Thanksgiving!
The average American will consume 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving between snacks, turkey, side dishes, and drinks.
The average caloric burn per day for a sedentary person is 1,800 calories. For a moderately active person, they will burn 2,000 – 2,200. This means we are eating over 2 DAYS’ WORTH of calories in ONE DAY.!!!
We can justify it to ourselves all we want. It’s a Holiday, It’s not all the time, It’s tradition, blah, blah, blah.
The fact of the matter is, now we must make up the difference of all that overindulgence. All the extra fat, carbs and yes even extra protein all get packed around our waist, hips, belly, and worst of all our organs.
Now what?
Now, you take stock of what you can do to help burn it off.
While I’m not a Black Friday enthusiast, getting out of the house the next day and doing anything other than sitting around in a food coma is a great start.
Go for a walk, inside or out (Malls count as walking if you do it at a rigorous pace).
Go to the gym, steady state cardio is a good option today since a stepmill/treadmill/elliptical/rower/etc... will be a tame way to break into a sweat without risk of regurgitation.
If you are a more seasoned fitness enthusiast interval work can give you the spike in heart rate with the built-in rest to get the most out of your time in the gym.40 seconds of work paired with 20 seconds of rest for 30 minutes of the right exercise groupings can really get the fat burning to try and bring you back to status quo.
While this all helps, you will not make up the difference in one day. If you haven’t been paying attention to your caloric intake previously, you probably have a good “surplus” on your person before Thanksgiving ever arrived.
Use this as a realization to take accountability towards your eating choices and make sure that your meals are supplying you with enough energy for your daily routine. Nobody runs a marathon every day, so you shouldn’t eat enough calories to supply one.
