You are currently viewing How to Stay Healthy this Easter (or the Easter Recovery Action Plan)

How to Stay Healthy this Easter (or the Easter Recovery Action Plan)

Easter… sometimes it feels more like a week long chocolate festival than anything else. 

The chocolate, the hot cross buns, the chocolate (did I say that already?)

Love it or dread it… Read on and we can help you reframe Easter or Recover from it. 

This journal article is in 2 parts: 

  • Part one is how to flip Easter on its head and celebrate without overindulging. 

  • Part two is how to mop up and protect your body (if you do have a Willy Wonka, river of chocolate style Easter).

Whatever happens, we’ve got your back with help and advice.

Flipping Easter traditions on their head

Part one of this journal article is all about challenging yourself around the commercial narrative of Easter. No matter your beliefs and traditions, Easter, at its core, is an opportunity to be with the people you love and take some time together.

How to flip it? It’s easy if you embrace the idea. Challenge yourself and your habits at this time. Be curious about how the Easter holiday could look different for your loved ones and be a critical thinker in terms of the commercial realities of Easter.

  • Are the products you purchase supporting your health?

  • Are the products you purchase supporting our environment?

  • Are the products you purchase supporting Australian business?

It’s actually a super simple swap out once you make the decision. So what sort of swaps?

  1. Swap food for activities. Easter morning can be a trip to the beach, the river, the park. Pack a special breakfast and swap out the ‘hunt’ for play.

  2. Swap the chocolate for no-food gifts. Give eggs that aren’t made of chocolate. These Dindi soap eggs, in store and online, are the perfect Easter egg – with health benefits. Or give a book, there really is no gift as lasting as a book.

  3. Make your eggs real. It’s so much fun and a great way to spend time together. We love these 60 ideas for egg decorations – take it as far as you want with whatever materials you have in the house. 

  4. If you’re eating chocolate, make it good quality dark chocolate. It’s hard to overeat dark chocolate. There are also many great vegan and low sugar options available.

  5. Avoid taking the kids (and maybe even yourself) to the supermarkets with aisles and checkout lanes full of Easter treats. Out of sight out of mind really is the key.

In a nutshell:

Move out of the chocolate ‘slip stream’ and into your own flow – where you can celebrate togetherness, health, and wellbeing with more joy than a chocolate bunny will ever bring.

  Mop up after the fact

We’re all human and we all end up eating things we had the best intentions of putting to the side. 

That’s OK. No shame, no flagellation. Let’s mop up.

To do that, it helps to understand how sugar acts within the body. I’m going to give you the cheats guide and get straight onto the fix. Here goes:

  • Sugar can impair your gut microbiome, feeding up bad bugs and starving out the good guys. This affects your mood, immune system, energy, sleep, bowels, and more. 

  • Sugar disrupts your appetite, over time, it will lead to insulin resistance (like your body can’t see or use insulin anymore). Insulin is very inflammatory, and if it does not work well, you end up with higher sugar levels in your blood as well as more inflammatory insulin. This means damage to tissues in your body and a LOT of ongoing hunger.

  • Sugar leads to weight gain. Healthy fats do not cause weight gain like sugar. 

  • Dietary sugar consumption correlates with inflammation in the body, leading to heightened cortisol (stress hormone) levels in the body (it’s a damaging feedback loop) 

  • Both cortisol and sugar need a LOT of magnesium to be cleared from the body – magnesium is essential for relaxation, proper nerve function, muscle function, and sleep

So you can see that most systems in your body responsible for feeling calm, relaxed, and comfortable are disrupted by sugar. However, we’re in luck! We know what to do about that.

Let’s get the obvious bit over and done with… take a break from sugars if you’ve indulged over Easter. From there, the following steps will really help you get your body and long term health back on track.

First: Replace magnesium. This is really important every day but especially after you’ve ridden the sugar train. It takes 64 molecules of magnesium to break down one glucose molecule and we end up low – this means impaired muscle function, nervous system function, and sleep. (It’s actually the recipe for grumpiness) 

Here at White Earth we love replacing magnesium topically, the skin absorbs magnesium really well and it’s super quick. Try a magnesium bath with salts, or a spray for the time-poor 

Using some types of oral magnesium can have up to 94% loss through digestion, that’s why we have a range of magnesium products Through the skin you get up to 98% absorption. 

Next: Give your microbiome some TLC. We love to do this with The Beauty Chef. An absolute staff favourite, we recommend the Inner Beauty Powder.  This comes in vanilla and chocolate and is supercharged using their Flora Culture™ fermentation process, which creates a natural broad-spectrum probiotic as well as prebiotics to feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut—because a healthy microbiome is key to almost everything else.

A second way to hack your gut health is with collagen, as sugar damages the gut lining, collagen can mop up and contains every molecule needed to build a healthy strong gut lining – basically building a home for good bacteria to thrive in. Our favourite is beauty chef again. Choose the Deep Collagen – Inner Beauty Support. 

Finally: Let’s address stress. Stress is more than emotional, we are exposed to physical, chemical, and emotional stress daily. Sugar is a type of chemical stress on the body that can trigger a cortisol spike, and as I mentioned above – triggers or exacerbates a feedback loop of continual elevated levels of cortisol. Removing stress – the chemical exposure, the physical stress, or emotional triggers is ideal. But you can also make great gains in reducing stress with some self-care. For this, we love combining aromatherapy with breathwork. 

Here is a super simple breathwork:

 

Box Breathing

Before commencing, pop 2 drops of your favourite essential oil on your palm. Rub palms together, cup your face and inhale deeply, allowing the therapeutic oils deep into your lungs and into your bloodstream. Lengthen your exhale and you are ready to begin. 

Step 1: Sit comfortably with your back supported. Let your shoulders relax.

Step 2: Inhale for a count of 4. Ensure your shoulders remain loose and allow the breath to expand your lower abdomen.

Step 3: Hold for a count of 4

Step 4: Slowly exhale for a count of 4

Step 5: Hold for a count of 4

Step 6: Repeat 4 rounds, completing the ‘box’, or continue until you feel calm and relaxed.

A good sign that you are relaxed and no longer making stress hormones is extra saliva in the mouth and a feeling of warmth in your arms and legs.

Use our favourite essential oils from iKOU or Dindi

In a Nutshell:

After the flood of treats you can get back on track quickly by targeting the systems affected by sugar:

  1. Replace magnesium and nutrients
  2. Give your gut some love and care with collagen and probiotics
  3. Reduce stress to give you body space

For the Geeks (Resources)


Excessive Sugar Consumption May Be a Difficult Habit to Break: A View From the Brain and Body

Cortisol — Its Role in Stress, Inflammation, and Indications for Diet Therapy

The impact of sugar consumption on stress driven, emotional and addictive behaviors

Fructose-induced inflammation and increased cortisol: A new mechanism for how sugar induces visceral adiposity

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Kim

    Great article ??
    Love the advice and recommendations/solutions

    1. admin

      Thanks for the feedback Kim, we have so much greatness coming

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