A typical Thanksgiving Day meal, to no one's surprise, is packed with calories — 3,000 to 4,000, according to the American Council on Exercise.

And it's not those beneficial or benign calories but more often the fatty ones coming from dark turkey meat, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and cream sauces.

Compare that one meal with the 1,500 to 2,500 calories dietitians recommend a normal person take in each day and you get an idea of the havoc that one Thanksgiving Day feast wreaks on a diet.

You could attempt to sweat it off in one shot, but you'd likely take all the enjoyment out of Thanksgiving.

A 160-pound person would have to run at a moderate pace for four hours, swim for five hours or walk 30 miles to burn off a 3,000-calorie Thanksgiving Day meal, the American Council on Exercise says.

Since Thanksgiving is a national holiday and gyms and health clubs are closed, Florida personal fitness trainer Stephanie Maikranz says the best attack against the battle of the bulge on Thanksgiving Day is balancing some light physical activity with careful eating.

Maikranz suggests making exercise a fun family affair, such as holding push-up/sit-up contests or relay races or having a beach volleyball or touch football game.

"An activity in the morning, like a brisk walk, before you eat is good because that will get your metabolism going for the day," she say. "You should also take a brisk walk sometime after you eat."

Thanksgiving Day is just the start of a food-and-sweet fest typically ending New Year's Day.

Maikranz, and others, say people can gain 7 pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas if they don't work out.

But it's not hard to do some modest physical activity to keep the calories in check.

"A brisk walk, depending on the intensity, will burn an average of five to seven calories per minute," Maikranz says, adding that men burn more calories than women "because they have more muscle mass."

Other tips for Thanksgiving Day: