Exercising off the 3,000 calories of a basic (no alcohol or appetizers) traditional holiday meal is formidable. Dr. Cedric Bryant, the American Council on Exercise's chief exercise physiologist, says to work the entire meal off, a 160-pound person would need to run at a moderate pace for four hours, swim for five hours or walk 30 miles.

Here, we break some elements of the typical holiday meal into exercise-noted portions so that you can make choices about how much you really want to eat that dinner roll, and what you'll need to do to burn off its calories.

--Joan Westlake, HealthKey.com contributor