A typical Thanksgiving meal contains over 3,000 calories. What does it do to your body? Michele Meyer reports.
The good news is that it takes 3,500 excess calories to gain a pound -- so you might escape from your holiday feast with little to show for it.
The bad news is that at least 40 percent of the excess calories you've eaten probably come from fat. Fat is the most calorically dense (nine calories a gram versus four for protein and carbohydrates), and it converts most easily into fat on your hips.

Your stomach and intestines burn off about 20 percent of the calories in the process of converting excess carbohydrates and proteins into fat. However, your body doesn't burn a single calorie when it is converting nutritional fat into body fat. Your small intestine simply dumps it straight into your bloodstream.

"If you eat 100 excess fat calories, most of the 100 are stored as fat," explains Franca Alphin, R.D., L.D.N., administrative director of Duke University Diet & Fitness Center, NC. With 100 calories of excess carbs, about 20 go to fat storage.

-from http://magazines.ivillage.com/marie..._437611,00.html