Following the Thanksgiving Feast

The Scene: Your home on Thanksgiving Day.

The Characters: You, your friends and your kinfolk, including the kids (who refuse to sit at the kids’ table, preferring the pup tent in the back yard), the adults (who just won’t stop Thursday morning quarterbacking that UCLA-USC game) and your Cousin Lou (whom you are going to deck if she mentions your gravy and the La Brea tar pits in the same sentence one more time).

The Reason You’ve All Gathered: To gobble, gobble, gobble. After all, this is annual stuff-your-face day.

The Dilemma: Rather than eat, you’ve heard that you should just smear the dinner directly on your hips and thighs. It’ll end up there anyway, right? (Possibly, if you are a woman; if you’re a man, look for it later in your gut.)

The Advice: Take our hand as we take you (with the help of Times health columnist Kathleen Doheny) on a tour of the road taken by Thanksgiving dinner. Feel those tummy aches, hear those feisty gastric juices, learn why you get that post-meal snoozy feeling--and how you can get through the rigors of the day. And see how that hunk of pumpkin pie you’re eyeballing has socially redeeming qualities.

(Yeah, right.)

*

4 p.m.: Your beloveds are gathered around the table, complete with the good tablecloth, good dishes, good glasses, good silverware and the-- good gracious!!-- roughly 4,000 calories per person of Thanksgiving dinner.

According to the experts, the leftovers can be a bigger dieting problem than the main meal. Call an exorcist and get the extra food out of the house as soon as the meal is over. And if you can’t foist one more pie onto Aunt Maude, wrap up the goodies and toss them in the freezer immediately.

*

4:01 p.m.: Let the eating begin. Turkey and Co. are broken down into small particles in your mouth. The saliva dilutes the food and sends it sliding down your esophagus, the vital tube--in case you missed science class--that carries food from the throat to your stomach. But what if you spent Thanksgiving morning adhering to the starve-till-dinner plan?

Bad idea , says Long Beach dietitian Sherri Bates. “When you are starving, you’ll eat anything that’s not nailed down. Your ability to stay in control is lessened. Your metabolism slows down.” She suggests breakfast, a light noonish snack and dinner as early as possible.

*

4:05 p.m.: The feast continues to arrive in your stomach, where a welcoming committee of gastric juices is on hand and probably already churning from the stress of Cousin Lou breathing down your neck, saying: “I’d never make gravy that way. But go ahead, don’t let me interfere.”

Think of the stomach as a hopper and chopper. A hopper because the upper part stores food and a chopper because the lower part breaks it down so that when what you’ve swallowed reaches the small intestine, it’s relatively bacteria-free.

Meanwhile, think of Cousin Lou as a moocher on your father’s side who will complain--while eating all your food and drinking all your booze--then go away until next Thanksgiving.

(Although eating slowly won’t get rid of Cousin Lou, it will help you calm down and ease the digestive process. )

*

4:45 to 6 p.m.: Food enters the small intestine. Turkey and Co. are now going through 18 to 20 feet of twists and turns as nutrients are absorbed along the way. The pancreas, gall bladder and liver are adding little secretions of their own to aid in the digestive process.

If you are a typical red-blooded Thanksgiving diner, you will stuff your face today, eating possibly two to three times what you would normally eat for dinner. Including after-dinner grazings, it is estimated that you will inhale 7,600 calories. To put that figure in perspective, a 150-pound woman who rarely exercises should eat 1,650-1,800 calories a day to maintain weight.

*

5:30 p.m.: The urge to crawl to the sofa with quilt in hand may be overwhelming.

Some experts point the finger at the turkey, saying that the amino acid tryptophan found in the turkey is a natural sleep inducer. (Also found in milk, tryptophan is behind the warm-milk theory of sleep induction.) But the National Turkey Federation folks say uh-uh. Sure the birds have tryptophan, but very low levels, spokeswoman Chin Chu Morley says. She points the finger at carbohydrates. You point the finger at Uncle Roscoe, who is telling the family for the kajillionth time about the bear he single-handedly wrestled during his vacation at Yellowstone. . . .

Napping after a huge meal does not usually pose a health risk, but if you haven’t fully digested your food, you could be uncomfortable.

*

5:35 p.m.: Your blood is probably so overloaded with fat that a blood sample taken now would resemble bearnaise sauce. If you have a problem with intestinal absorption, now’s the time diarrhea might hit.

Your system is not used to this kind of massive fat intake, especially if you’ve been munching on carrots and sprouts. Recommendations: Eat white meat over dark; be gallant and let your sister have the fat-laden turkey skin; skip the whipped cream; skip the butter; skip the pie crust; drink lots of water, and cry over the fact that you are missing out on all these treats. (Surely crying burns calories?)

*

6 p.m.: If you’re going to get a stomachache from overeating, now’s probably the time. “Overextension”--the biological equivalent of trying to fit a suitcase full of clothing into an evening bag--is at its worst.

Or is that stomachache due to food poisoning--a Thanksgiving malady that occurs because turkey cooks have prepared other foods on the same surface where the raw turkey once sat without thoroughly washing the area? Although indigestion might be accompanied by a little discomfort, food poisoning symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting.

*

6:03 p.m.: Food continues to be digested in the small intestine; food that cannot be digested, such as fiber, is sent on its way to the large intestine.

If you want digestion to move at a fairly normal pace, don’t pig out on fats. The digestive process slows to a crawl when pitted against crispy roasted turkey skin. Fats take longer than carbohydrates and proteins to move out of the stomach.

*

6:20 p.m.: If you’re feeling really guilty about overindulgence, it’s probably now safe to do a little exercise. Walking at a moderate pace is probably the best bet.

Experts suggest working out before dinner, but if you’re too busy creating a feast for 50--making Robert’s 9 o’clock low impact aerobics class an impossibility--wait until about two hours after dinner to work out and then make the exercise moderate.

*

6:30 p.m.: Most of your feast is probably metabolized and digested. Some undigested portions might remain in your colon until the next morning.

*

8 p.m.: You feel soooooooo BIG.

If the Thanksgiving meal is predominantly fat, you might gain two or three pounds from the day’s eating and the night’s grazing.

If you’re really into pain, weigh yourself. You might see a gain of four or more pounds, but chances are that’s not a true reading. The sodium content of the meal is probably making you retain water.

*

11 p.m.: Everyone is gone--including Cousin Lou, who managed to take a Nordstrom shopping bag of leftovers home. (Mysteriously, the gravy disappeared when Lou left.) The kids are asleep. Fido’s circling the kitchen in search of anything remotely resembling turkey (critter experts say you should avoid feeding pets turkey, beef and pork, and certainly no turkey bones). And you--who have neither the strength nor inclination to leave the sofa--are reminded of that last piece of pumpkin pie . . . and the homemade vanilla ice cream . . . and the fresh whipped cream . . . and Scarlett O’Hara’s line about tomorrow being another day. . . .

Friday:

Don’t starve yourself.

Just cut back on the food (including the pumpkin pie that had the socially redeeming quality of making you feel better) and get thyself to the gym!!!

Sources: Dr. Herbert Rubin, gastroenterologist, co-director of the Digestive Relief Center at Century City Hospital; Dr. Richard Corlin, gastroenterologist at St. John’s Hospital and Health Center, Santa Monica; Jody Lander Spector, a dietitian and coordinator at the St. Vincent Medical Center Weight Management Program, Los Angeles; Dr. Parviz Afshani, gastroenterologist at St. John’s Hospital and Health Center, Santa Monica; Nature’s Recipe pet food company.

Just what are you eating on Turkey Day?

Carrot sticks:

Amount: 2 carrots

Calories: 60

% of fat: -0-

*

Wheat crackers:

Amount: 8

Calories: 130

% of fat: 42%

*

Cheddar cheese:

Amount: 4 cubes/2 oz.

Calories: 200

% of fat: 74%

*

Chenin Blanc:

Amount: 8 oz.

Calories: 160

% of fat: -0-

*

Cranberry sauce:

Amount: 4 oz.

Calories: 200

% of fat: -0-

*

Turkey, w/skin (dark meat):

Amount: 8 oz.

Calories: 520

% of fat: 41%

*

Turkey, w/out skin (white meat):

Amount: 8 oz.

Calories: 400

% of fat: 18%

*

Stuffing, cornbread, prepared out of the bird:

Amount: 2 cups

Calories: 720

% of fat: 45%

*

Mashed potatoes, w/butter & whole milk:

Amount: 2 cups

Calories: 460

% of fat: 36%

*

Gravy, turkey, canned:

Amount: 1 cup

Calories: 160

% of fat: 37%

*

Green beans, Sauteed:

Amount: 1 cup

Calories: 100

% of fat: 36%

*

Pumpkin pie:

Amount: 2 pieces

Calories: 700

% of fat: 45%

*

Whipped cream:

Amount: 4 tbls.

Calories: 200

% of fat: 96%

*

Ice cream, vanilla:

Amount: 1 cup

Calories: 360

% of fat: 60%

*

Calorie Totals:

Typical Thanksgiving dinner

3,850 (white-meat eaters)

3,970 (dark-meat eaters)

*

The American Dietetic Assn. recommends no more than 30% of calories come from fat; that about 15% of calories come from protein and about 55% from complex carbohydrates.

Source: Jody Lander Spector, R.D., St Vincent Medical Center Weight Management Program, Los Angeles.