Let me start by saying, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! There's a few things I'd like to touch on before divulging my 3 tips for success on this spooky holiday.
There are far too few Americans that have a basic understanding of nutrition and the role it plays in the way your body is formed and functions. I mean on a cellular level. What you eat BECOMES your cells. So my question to you is do you want to be made of fast food and pop or grass fed beef and kale. The answer is obvious to me.
One is like building a house of duct tape and 5 gallon buckets. It will be a wobbly, leaky, shitty house. The other is like hiring the best contractor in the business to use the highest grade materials to build you the ultimate fortress. Guess which is which.
That being said, that should be the majority of the time, it doesn’t have to be all the time. If you can live 80/20 you will be doing pretty damn good. 80% clean, 20% less clean foods. The majority is clean and healthy. Building up your house.
Now, it’s a special holiday and you don’t have to be that restrictive psycho completely denying you and your family the indulgences of Halloween. There's a few steps you can take for yourself and your family to enjoy the holiday without going completely off the rails.
1. Exercise. (higher intensity)
This will actually change the way your cells interact with glucose and can help minimize fat storage. Hopefully you’re already engaging in regular exercise because it will help stabilize your blood glucose levels overall. The exercise will hopefully deplete your muscle and liver glycogen and allow those tissues to more readily absorb glucose(sugar) instead of your adipose tissue(fat cells). If you’re going to eat candy, get in some intense exercise beforehand.
2. Moderation
For god’s sake, don’t you or your children eat the whole haul in one sitting. Also try not to whoof the entire score before this week is over. Avoid eating three pounds of candy every day for the next 5 days just because it's there. That’s going to be more damaging than breaking it up to smaller amounts over a long period of time. So, what I suggest is placing some boundaries on yourself and your family on how much to eat on Halloween and for the rest of the week. Then put that candy away, (ideally just throw it away and the problem is solved) and save it again for a different occasion. Don’t just let your kids or yourself graze on it whenever you feel like it for the next two weeks. Make it a rare occurrence.
3. Hydrate
This is a tip I include with almost any holiday nutrition help post due to the number of people that walk around in a constant state of dehydration. Drinking pop, diet pop, tea, sparkling sodas, anything but water. Your body will be able to function at a higher and more optimal level overall when you’re hydrated. It can handle stress and inflammation better (one cause of these effects is ingesting sugar regularly in high amounts) when it is properly hydrated.
These tips are hopefully something you will carry with you after the holiday as well. Even if you did go off the rails, putting these tips into action will help get you back on track much quicker. Day after and you ate 37 mini snickers bars?! Wake up, drink a large glass of water, hit a workout that will get you breathing hard and sweating, drink another glass of water. BOOM.
Follow that up with a hulk juice smoothie (recipe on our Instagram page: @enlightenedathlete) and you are back on the rails just like that!
These are some very simple things you can do to try and minimize the damage caused by walking in the door with a 10 pound sack of candy and diabetes ( I had to do it haha!).
If you'd like more advice on nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, strength & conditioning, recovery hacks, smart drugs, psychedelics or anything else enlightening; sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on newly released content and our newest products! Sign up HERE, just enter your email in the form.