When it comes to the holidays, we all have different traditions. But there does seem to be one commonality when it comes to Thanksgiving: feeling absolutely terrible after working your way through the turkey and all those sides.
It’s a state that Dr. Trisha Pasricha is familiar with. She’s a gastroenterologist, and she runs a lab studying the gut-brain connection at Harvard Medical School. On Thanksgiving, there’s a good chance you’ll find her working a shift at the hospital. “The classic thing we see is maybe four or five hours after dinnertime is people coming in with food stuck in their throats,” she told Vox. “So then we end up doing endoscopies to help get some of that food out. So the lesson for everyone who’s listening is to chew really carefully.”
Besides chewing our food, what are some other ways to set ourselves up for gastrointestinal success? Pasricha tells us on the latest episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast. Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
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What are things you can do early in the day to set yourself up for success?
First, you have to decide if you are a family that turkey trots together or not. The argument in favor of a turkey trot is that doing a small workout will actually set you up for digestive success for the rest of the day. That’s because any form of exercise primes the gastrointestinal (GI) system. You’re going to get things moving. You’re also going to release some endorphins, endocannabinoids. Those can really buffer you emotionally later in the day as family stress builds up.
If you’re not a turkey trotter, I tend to tell people that the best way to approach Thanksgiving is not to starve yourself all day so that when the big meal is upon you, you can eat as much as you want. That actually backfires. The more hungry you are, the more quickly you eat because you’re so hungry. You end up feeling suddenly full because it takes about 20 minutes for food to reach your small bowel and then signal to your brain that you’re full. So if you scarf all your food down, you’re going to really overshoot what you should be eating at that moment.
I actually like the approach — my family does this — we graze. We start the appetizers early in the afternoon. That approach actually helps, so that by the time you get to Thanksgiving dinner itself, you’re not totally starved.
So my official title as family taste-tester is actually a very smart idea?
One hundred percent. I mean, whoever is the taste-tester on Thanksgiving has won the family lottery.
Let’s fast forward to building my plate. What should I be putting on there?
It all depends on your goals here. There’s one group of people who will say, “It’s Thanksgiving day, I’m going to eat what I want, in the quantities that I want, and don’t get in my way.” To those people, I say, “You know what? It’s a holiday. Enjoy yourself. Live your best life.”
If your goal is to not feel ill afterwards, which is common to all of us, then what I would say is to put an appropriate amount of vegetables and protein on your plate and eat those things first.
By appropriate amount, I mean at least half the plate should be filled with those things. The reason why is because eating those vegetables first is going to help you feel full sooner, and you’re actually going to spike your blood sugar a little bit less than if you ate the exact same thing but in a different order.
So save the mac and cheese and the sweet potatoes for last?
Think of that as part of the treat.
This has been shown in several studies: Why do you think we all are bloated, we’ve eaten everything we can possibly eat, yet we so often have room for dessert? It’s because you can become satiated and full to just certain types of sensory experiences. So if your whole plate is savory, your body is still going to crave something sweet. But if you incorporate something sweet into your plate earlier on as part of the dinner, you actually might say, “I don’t need two slices of pie after this. I’ll be totally fine with just a few bites.”
Unless what you want in life is two slices of that pie because it’s your favorite pie in the world. I’m not going to rip that from your hands on a holiday.
Is there such a thing as too much turkey?
There was this older thinking, that turkey can make you really sleepy, and that’s because it contains these compounds called tryptophan. That’s kind of been debunked. The reason people feel sleepy after a big Thanksgiving meal is because of all the simple carbs that we’re loading up on.
Aside from the turkey, another thing that is plentiful at Thanksgiving tends to be alcohol. How does drinking on Thanksgiving affect how you feel after that meal?
Alcohol delays how quickly your stomach can empty food into your small bowel. So if you’re priming your stomach to already be sluggish and then you’re walking into the biggest meal of your year, you are setting yourself up for failure. I would try to avoid alcohol beforehand. If you want to have a glass of something, maybe have it a little bit after you’ve eaten.
Really the best thing you can do to help speed up your stomach is go for a short walk after the meal. All of your intestinal gas will start to dissipate if you go for even just a 10- or 15-minute walk.
If you overindulge at the meal, is that what you should do?
Yes. But the other thing I tell people is if you sit up straight, you are able to expel gas more efficiently than if you’re lying down. So at very least don’t lie down right after the meal. If you can’t go for the walk, at least have some good posture in your chair or on the couch.
Thanksgiving is kind of like the Olympics of eating. Do you think the way we’re eating on Thanksgiving is holding us back at all? Do we need to adjust that?
I think Thanksgiving is actually what brings the best of us out. There have been so many studies about how we are becoming more disconnected and lonely, and one key to happiness and longevity is just having a meal with family. Thanksgiving is one time where we all do that really consistently. So I don’t want to break Thanksgiving at all. I just want people to not feel sick and gassy afterwards. And I think there’s small tweaks we can make to so that part doesn’t happen.
