Alcohol and sugar act similarly on your system, creating a blood sugar high followed by a blood sugar low. If you don't stop the cycle, you crave more and nothing else appeals to the palate. Overindulgence in either pulls water from your cells (dehydration), though with sugar you get simultaneous dehydration and bloating- know that feeling? Both tax the immune system and prevent your body from fully utilizing available vitamins and minerals.
So in my opinion, yes. Halloween Hangover is real. And it sets you up to reach for those candy leftovers again and again (especially at about 10 am, 3:30 pm, and 9 pm). Right up until a few days before Thanksgiving when they run out. And after that, 'the holidays' take over.
January 1, everyone's holiday adrenaline crashes. Bodies realize they've been running on fumes for at least 6 weeks, and cold and flu season sets in with a vegeance.
Wow, Maureen, thanks for painting the most wonderful time of the year with such bleak strokes!!!
While other mommy bloggers are laying out plans for homemade Christmas cards and tree ornaments, hand-knit scarfs for everyone on the block (and their dogs), and recipes for artery clogging, brain-fog-inducing treats, I'm drwaing up battle plans to defend your little darlings from invading viral forces.
So, fellow mothers and health-food freaks, here's the plan:
1) Throw out any remaining Halloween candy. You can utilize a magical falsehood we like to call "The Sugar Fairy." You leave aaaaaaaall your extra candy on the front porch at night and she flies by to pick it up before sunrise. She takes the candy to her home in the woods and uses the sugar to spin snowflakes for the upcoming winter. (We do this the night of Halloween and there's no more candy. They get 10 pieces each. This year Rosie and Isaiah didn't even make it through their 10 before choosing to stop due to feeling sick. John Paul, on the other hand, ate all his and had a wild night.)
2) Remember that Vitamin C you stocked up on after reading my last post on whooping cough? Utilize it. You might not believe Vitamin C therapy is for real- bully for you. But I've seen it work too many times to scoff. I don't use high levels of Vitamin C on a regular basis, but in high-stress situations, I don't hesitate. ("Holiday diets," ie moose tracks, candy canes, and sugar cookies, are a nutritional stress on your body and its reaction is the same as to any stress: increased need for Vitamin C and increased production of stress hormones.) The protocol is simple. Take it and give it to your little people until you see loose stools, then back off a bit. A gram is plenty to start with for wee ones; increase from there. An adult under stress might need 10 grams or more before seeing loose stools.
3) Take your own homemade dessert to any and all functions you attend between October and January. Apple Crisp is my little people's favorite. Some all natural "soy whip" might be in order if I need to distract them from the mountains of brightly-colored crap also on the table. (Recipe forthcoming, io prometto.) Worst case scenario, you didn't bring your own dessert, eat a big healthy meal before you eat 1 or 2 servings of your FAVORITE THING- cheesecake or death by chocolate in my case. Carry mint tea bags or really strong peppermints or brush your teeth after that to help you limit your sweet intake.
4) Herbs and vitamins. In a perfect world, all our nutrition would come through our totally balanced, mostly raw, fruit-and-veggie-ful diet. In the real world, we need an insurance policy for 'sugar season.' That's why I'm extra careful with vitamins and herbs during the winter months. And there are, apparantly, a plethora of winter months up here in Nebraska. *Sigh*.
Come back by tomorrow and I'll have a list of my favorite ready-made herbal and vitamin products up for you. That is, those of you who procrastinated and didn't make up multiple batches of elderberry syrup and rasperry-licorice-cinnamon tincture!
"Buddy: We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup!"
-Elf, the movie
This year I paid the kids $1 each for most of their candy. Most. They were still left with half a gallon storage bag! Craziness. I got sick of it. I let them eat it all. In 2 days it was gone. GONE. And I have the rest in a bucket hidden. I'm going to take out the twix and chuck the rest. =) Actually, I have to safe Daddy some..he grew up deprived and thinks our children need to experience sugar-overload..I totally disagree..most American candy belongs in the trash, not in my child's body.
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