Thanksgiving and Afternoon Snoozing

Rachel Feltman:

Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and Americans are preparing to knuckle down and stuff their faces, come what may. While the “average” calorie counts of Thanksgiving diners are often overblown, it’s safe to say that most people eat richer food — and more of it — than they would during a typical meal.

Bonnie Berkowitz and Lazaro Gamio:

There is no such thing as an average dinner, said registered dietitian Jennifer McDaniel of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, but a varied meal of 600 to 800 calories fits nicely into the 2,000-calorie daily diet referenced on nutrition labels.

But a holiday dinner can easily approach or exceed 2,000 calories by itself, especially if you dig into the appetizers before dinner and wash it all down with a couple of glasses of wine. (One estimate put a typical holiday dinner as high as 4,500 calories, but that would be extremely difficult for most stomachs to stomach.)

Even nutrition-conscious dieters tend to give themselves a pass at the end of the year. In a November survey of MyFitnessPal app users that was done for The Post, 88 percent said they plan to relax their food rules at least a little during the holidays, and 10 percent said they planned to chuck the rules entirely.

Back to Rachel Feltman:

But what does this delicious, delicious debauchery do to your body?…

You might think that your post-turkey nap is caused by the bird itself, but this is actually just a myth. It’s true that turkey meat contains tryptophan, an amino acid that the body uses to produce serotonin — a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep. But so do other foods. Cheddarcheese actually has more tryptophan than turkey does, and you don’t conk out every time you eat grilled cheese (I hope).

The real culprit is the overeating. When you eat a ton of carbs (stuffing, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes all at once will do the trick), your body releases extra insulin to keep your blood sugar in check. From LiveScience:

The massive intake of carb-heavy calories stimulates the release of insulin, which in turn triggers the uptake of most amino acids from the blood into the muscles except for tryptophan.

With other amino acids swept out of the bloodstream, tryptophan — from turkey or ham or any meat or cheese, for that matter — can better make its way to the brain to produce serotonin. Without that insulin surge, tryptophan would have to compete with all the other kinds of amino acids in the big meal as they make their way to the brain via a common chemical transport route.

So don’t blame your basted bird: Blame all the side dishes you ate with it. And consider pausing before you dive into dessert.