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Turkey Day Detox: Expert Advice On Recovering From Your Thanksgiving Binge

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- If you're like the rest of us, you're probably going to overindulge on Thanksgiving.

Come Friday, you'll be trying to figure out how to detox from all that over-doing.

As CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez explained, the obvious answer is to avoid over-doing it in the first place.

Since that won't happen, there are a couple of things you can do to atone for your food sins.

Start by looking at the day a little differently.

"It's a holiday, not a holi-week. It is okay to give yourself the green light to eat the foods we don't indulge in on a typical day. You just have to know how to get back on track the next day," Sharon Zarabi, a dietician at Lenox Hill Hospital explained.

In other words.

"Press the reset button and go back to programming yourself to eat better," Yanira Diaz said.

It's easier said than done of course, but start with something easy; water. Drink lots of it. It's filling, re-hydrates after too much alcohol and caffeine and tends to flush out the extra salt you ate.

Then comes the hard part.

"Don't eat leftovers," Chantelle Borum said.

That's the best part for a lot of people, so try a different approach.

"Get rid of all the pies, the sweets, the stuffing, anything that's a simple carbohydrate. That tends to make you hungrier throughout the day," Zarabi said.

Leftover turkey sandwiches are okay, just go easy on the mayo. Salads and other veggies are good too.

Then there's the part we all know we should do, but often avoid.

"Just try to make it to the gym," Borum said.

Most of us will have three days to burn off those extra calories. Exercise, or at least walk a little bit every day. Anything that gets you off the couch and away from leftovers will help.

"When it comes to the holidays it's either feast or famine. We tend to over-indulge on a holiday weekend and punish ourselves when we're looking to cleanse," Zarabi said, "Not a good idea."

It's okay to eat a little bit of everything, just not huge portions or seconds and thirds -- and don't treat gravy as a beverage.

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