Eight Healthy Thanksgiving Activities

That traditional Thanksgiving refrain, "Hooray for the pumpkin pie!" needn't be the doleful sound of doom to your healthy lifestyle efforts. In fact, why not use Thanksgiving - the quintessential celebration of abundance and plenty - to kick off a season-long flurry of healthy activities? Here's a kick-start!

1. Take a hike! After your Thanksgiving feast, put away your comfy bunny slippers and strap on your hiking boots. While family and friends are gathered around, enjoy a group outing to a nearby park or nature preserve. Take along a birding book, and share a pair of binoculars. Give the little ones paper sacks for their collections of pine cones, acorns and the last of the colorful autumn leaves.

2. Grab your bike and get peddling. Up the street, across town, around the block - it doesn't matter where you go as long as you're moving. Use the Thanksgiving Day family bike tour as an opportunity to review bicycle and traffic safety with the youngsters. Don't forget your helmet and knee pads.

3. Can't burn leaves? Pick up that leaf rake, anyway, and burn nearly 300 calories away in an hour of moderate raking. Make big piles for the kids to jump in - then rake them up again for an even bigger calorie burn.

4. Don't let a little snow stand between you and a healthy Thanksgiving holiday. Cross-country skiing is a great, healthful activity on a snowy Thanksgiving weekend. Call around to local nature centers and county parks. Many offer moonlight specials with lighted cross-country ski trails.

5. Ask everyone at your Thanksgiving bash to bring one healthy item to pass. Skip the fried foods and gooey desserts, and concentrate on healthier baking and broiling. Put away the alcohol and high-sugar soft drinks and offer ginger-mint tea and natural fruit juices instead.

6. Take a family swim at the local YMCA. If that's not handy, rent a room at a local hotel that offers an indoor swimming pool. Play "Marco Polo" in the pool with the kids. Spent a few minutes in the hot tub or sauna, and you'll sleep like a baby Thanksgiving night.

7. Make some new family memories, chopping wood together for the night's fire, or trekking across a tree farm to pick out and bring down the perfect holiday conifer.

8. Give thanks this Thanksgiving - scientists believe the body can't feel stress simultaneously with rushes of gratitude. So count your blessings in a big way this Thanksgiving. It may be the healthiest activity you enjoy all year long!