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Want To Burn Thanksgiving Calories? You Gotta Actually Cook The Dinner

Thanksgiving dinner
Thanksgiving. (photo credit: Thinkstock)

CHICAGO (CBS) -- This is hard to believe - but it's true (at least according to the editors at a prominent food magazine.)

You can actually burn calories at Thanksgiving.

But here's the catch: You have to cook the dinner.

"Eating Well" magazine is out with it's "cooking workout."

Here's how it breaks down:

If you spend 45 minutes seasoning and prepping your bird (including stirring and whisking the gravy), you'll burn 122 calories.

About 20 minutes of peeling, cutting and mashing those potatoes, equals 54 calories.

Another 20 minutes of trimming, cooking and tossing green beans, for your famous green bean casserole, that will also burn 54 calories.

As for the stuffing ...

About 75 minutes of chopping fruits and veggies and toasting bread and mixing it all up burns 203 calories.

Your 20 minutes of prepping and stirring that cranberry sauce equals 54 calories.

And let's not forget dessert.

A total 50 minutes of measuring ingredients and mixing your pumpkin pie--that's 135 calories.

If you add it all up, you can burn off a good chunk of what you will eat.

A total of 622 calories!

And this doesn't include those calories burned scrubbing the powder room, vacuuming the floors, dusting, straightening and setting the table! (Vacuuming for an hour burns 300 calories alone.)

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