Nutrilicious: Nutritious Meets Delicious: Surviving Thanksgiving: Strategies for Before, During, and After the Big Meal

Countdown to the Typical Food Coma:

Day Before:

Watch TV and plan how the meal will be scheduled around the football game.

8 a.m.

Eat a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hash browns...no work today, there's time to make it hearty!

11 a.m.

Pop in and out of the kitchen and sneak a few bites here and there.

4 p.m.

Thanksgiving Dinner!!

After the Feast:

Lay on the couch with the top button unfastened, watching highlights of the football game. Have a couple more beers and graze on the leftovers until bedtime.

What Happens to Your Body After a Big Meal?

Every person absorbs fats, sugars, and other nutrients differently. These certain variations can provide clues about a person's risk for common medical conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, research shows. Even in healthy people, cells that line the blood vessels temporarily function less efficiently after a person eats a high-fat meal.

One of the biggest tasks for the body after consuming a big meal is dealing with those pesky fats in the blood. Cholesterol, particularly the LDLs, or "bad cholesterol", attacks the walls of the arteries and forms a sticky, plaque-like substance, which can block blood flow or eventually cause the artery to rupture. This can lead to heart attacks and strokes. This condition is known as atherosclerosis.

Triglycerides (packaged fat cells in food, the body, and blood), which typically peak after a big meal, are present in food and are also converted by the body from other nutrients, like carbohydrates. Triglycerides are particularly good at penetrating the artery wall and can further promote atherosclerosis.

Light exercise done continuously for 30 minutes or more appears to reduce the peak in triglycerides that occurs after eating a meal some 12 to 16 hours later. It is unclear exactly why there is a delay, but exercise induces a number of cellular responses that require different amounts of time to take effect. Other research has suggested that the benefits of exercise on fat processing can last as long as 48 hours.

Obviously the ideal is to be continuously active. But if people are more sedentary and want to try to time their exercise for optimal fat processing, it is best to take that long walk about half a day prior to the big meal.

Elevated levels of triglycerides could also be an early warning sign of Type II Diabetes. People who are insulin resistant, a precursor to Diabetes, also typically have elevated triglyceride levels in the liver, muscle tissue, and blood after eating.

Even in "healthy" people, eating a fatty meal can impair the proper functioning of cells that line the blood vessel, potentially making them more susceptible to atherosclerosis. The changes to the blood vessel appear specifically triggered by the amount of fat content in the meal.

Reducing the amount of fat in meals can minimize the negative impact on the blood-vessel cells. Also, scientists expect that eating smaller amounts of food more frequently is better on blood vessels than eating large meals, but research in this area is limited.

Countdown to a Healthier Way to Indulge:

Day Before:

Thirty-minute stroll through the neighborhood.

8 a.m.:

Ate a healthy breakfast of hot oatmeal with cinnamon and flaxseeds to boost your metabolism.