Staying active this easter

Easter might be a little bit different this year to previous years for many people whilst social isolating.  Perhaps you are usually involved in camping with friends, bush walking, tennis tournaments and other activities which help to counteract some of the goodies we eat and alcohol we drink across the weekend.   But if you are planning on having a hot cross bun and easter egg or 2 (or 3!), you may want to plan some exercise in to your weekend!

​Pop Quiz 

1. How long do you think you would have to run for to burn off 1 hot cross bun?  - 30 minutes 
2. Cadbury Crème eggs are a small egg sold individually, how many minutes of continuous burpees would an average female need to undertake to burn off one Cadbury Crème egg?  - 15 minutes.
3. A 200g Lindt Bunny contains 4560kj which is slightly more than a Big Mac – how many minutes of walking do you think an average male would need to do to burn that off? - walk for around 3.5 hours, or run for 1.5 hours. 

Apart from the amount of energy you need to expend through exercise to burn off those calories, the other hard part can be finding the energy to work out after consuming huge amounts of sugar.  Excess sugar in the short term can wipe out your energy and make you crave more sugar. 

However, the good news is that the Journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise has found that that the negative effects of extra fructose, sucrose and glucose were significantly less detrimental when participants exercised more. 
 
When physically exerting ourselves; we increase our insulin sensitivity. This in turn means that our body uses less insulin to absorb the sugar we consume, keeping our blood glucose levels in check, making us more energetic and curbing the chocolate cravings. 
  
Tips to stay on track this Easter: 
 
Save the indulging for Easter Sunday 
Rather than snacking on chocolate throughout the whole weekend, or even before, try and save eating easter eggs only for Sunday.  And for the kids, encourage grandparents or other relatives who wish to spoil them to provide alternative gifts to chocolates, like books or games to decrease the amount of chocolate they also receive and consume. 
 
Quality of Quantity 
Treat yourself to some good quality chocolate eggs for Easter.  These are generally smaller, and you’ll want to savour every mouthful! 
 
Choose Dark Chocolate 
Dark chocolate not only contains less sugar and more fibre and iron than milk chocolate, it is also packed with anti-oxidants.   
 
Get Moving 
Easter is a great time to spend time connecting with family.  Try and choose active pastimes like a morning walk or bike ride, a hit of tennis, or anything that gets you out and moving.  Or try our high intensity workout below.  You also might not feel as guilty when you treat yourself to some chocolate! 
 
High Intensity Easter Workout
Start with a 5-10 minute warm up including dynamic stretches, and then start the circuit and complete it 2-3 times.  Complete with a cool down and static stretches.  Click here to download.
This circuit is an intermediate circuit, and may not be suitable for all fitness levels, therefore please use commonsense when deciding if this exercise program is right for you.

---