Hack Your Hormones
Yule-Tired Rescues from the WillPowders Room at the Inn
Yup - certainly it’s the most wonderful time of the year, if you’re a small child, a husband or an elf. Have yourself a merry little Christmas? Well, that can be a different matter altogether. That’s right, unfortunately, Christmas can be just another opportunity to get wrapped up in even more stress (but this time with a festive tartan bow on), skid into encounters with the entire contents of the supermarket confectionery aisles, of which there are at least three this time of year, and we end up asking our livers to work harder than Rudolph’s entire pulling team.
Help is on the WillPowders Way, (rein)dear, help is on the WillPowders Way!
This year, we’re stepping in as WillPowders Rescue Mechanics, complete with ubiquitous Christmas Jumpers and Happy to Help badges trimmed with tinsel to help you avoid the obligatory snowman in a furnace meltdown. We’ve got tools to help stop you wondering why you ever bought that one way ticket for the Polar Express. So, before you find yourself roasting someone’s chestnuts on an open fire, let WillPowders help you make sure you’re rockin’ around the Christmas Tree rather than rocking in a corner.
W is for WillPowders wit and wisdom
Willpowders is here to help with all the trimmings, which, if you’re the one ‘magicking’ up Christmas, are actually just called Extras. We totally get that admitting the Chrimbo festival with your family doesn't always look like one of the schmaltzy adverts can feel taboo when it’s the season of enforced fun. But saying it aloud is ok because it’s a myth that somewhere a Christmas Fairy dies if you admit that it’s not always all peppermint candy canes and rainbow icing on the gingerbread house of cards.
If you know us at WillPowders at all, you’ll know that we’re realists so you can spill it all here: noel can turn to ‘no hell on Earth is more overwhelming’ and, at times, it can be a little bit (and for little bit, read downright) crappy with a dollop of ennui and despair on the side.
And it definitely all gets Extra. It’s a day which involves an Extra Six Weeks of ‘happy’ gatherings and gift buying and avoiding all the Extra Food while shopping for all the Extra Food plus the Extra Housework and Extra Calming Down of the Little People with Big Expectations while navigating Extra Traffic every time you drive anywhere. Get your Extra Tools together, favourite this Extra Helpful Blog and let’s make it Extraordinary this year!
P is for the presents of protein
Given that the fridge is going to be more stocked with protein than the front of Mr. Claus’s sleigh, protein’s one tool that should be easy to use to get you through. At a time when it seems there’s a three course meal every three quarters of an hour, you’ll legitimately be able to say, no thanks, I’ve just eaten, because you’re more likely to feel exactly that way with more protein in your diet. High Protein Diets mean feeling fuller for longer and so give you the potential for longer periods of time until your next meal.
Get truffling the turkey ...
... which is also rich in tryptophan (not gonna lie - so are other Christmas tradition proteins - nuts, beef, pork, lamb, the huge cheese selection that’ll be in residence in your fridge) which is used by the body in the production of serotonin and melatonin [*] - those ‘happy hormones’. Something tells us we might want to stoke our fires up with those bad boys this season, if previous years of tears, tantrums and tinsel are anything to go by. Plus, tryptophan might well be part of the reason you feel sleepy after your turkey dinner [*]! Goodness knows by then we’ll be needing the rest!
Looking to avoid sugar laden snacking this Christmas when you’re knee deep in selection boxes? If you’ve got some of our Vanilla Protein Powder handy, whip up a darling of a drink with our Eggnog Mocktail. More broadly, our delicious bone broth protein powders can be used as stand ins for sugar laden hot drinks and yet another novelty shaped chocolate and might help you dodge the sugary snack temptations that, at this time of year, appear in places as odd as where we find the Elf on the Shelf.
R is for Rescue and Rise & Shine for Liver Support
Don’t get us wrong - it is traditional feast time. It’s just that our genes aren’t meant to cope with quite so much feast over quite such a long time as modern living dictates. When you can’t look another pig in a blanket in its eye and the glass of fizz might as well be like drinking a glass of fuzz, it’s time to think about liver support. WillPowders Rise & Shine includes milk thistle extract plus silymarin which has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties to boot and may even help the liver to repair by growing new cells. Plus, because we take our roles as Christmas Angels seriously, we included NADH, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) + hydrogen (H) - boy, that was quite the wrapping challenge! This could help to banish that familiar feeling of ‘can’t be bothered’, a feeling which is a nuisance when you have to schlep across two hundred light years to make the Duty Visit to The Relatives.
M is for MCT Keto Creamer to Curb the Christmas Chocolate Cravings
It’s the time of year when the stuff of cravings is literally right before your eyes. To help stop shoving sugar in our mushes, we can take a quick swig of MCT oil. Faced with chocolates in jewel-coloured wrappers in a novelty dish on every surface of everyone’s house you visit means that having MCT handy in a hip flask might not entirely be an eccentrically Mad Aunt Maud statement piece! If not now, then when else could you get away with it? MCT Oil’s sister product, MCT Keto Creamer Sachets, could help with extending a fast so that you can shimmy round the sugar and dubious veg oils with everything breakfasts, buffets and banquets. No host in the world will mind you slipping one of these measures into your cuppa! They might even get curious about the WillPowders Way - so tip ‘em off about the Stash Tins.
Stick a disco scoop and whizzer in your own stocking as a guaranteed way of getting something you actually want for Christmas. It might even counteract the toaster your other half saw fit to buy you (!?) and you owe it to yourself to find glimmers of comfort and joy this time of year. Spooning creamer into festive drinks that demand a frothy, creamy finish becomes instantly more indulgent.
E is for ElectroTide Mocktails
When you wake up with a mouth as dry as the bottom of Santa’s sack and feeling all the energy of a sleepwalking slug, it’s time for an ElectroTide mocktail. There’s not many points in the year when it’s acceptable to have a fancy glass in your hand at nine in the morning, so you might as well make the most of it. The ElectroTide includes macronutrients magnesium, calcium and phosphorus to potentially support your body keeping topped up with some of those necessaries, and the added Brain Powder could support energy levels. Mummy won’t be needing a bit of a lie down come mid afternoon after one of these beauties! And, don’t forget, in the dearth of soft drinks selections that are on offer that don’t have either sugar or artificial sweetener in them, WillPowders ElectroTides can be a lifesaver when it comes to being designated driver. No sugar spikes or chemical dives whatsoever.
C is for Calm
Yup - extending Christmas cheer sometimes feels more like extending Christmas gritted teeth smiles. Plus, have you ever noticed how angst provoking Christmas is? It somehow feels like there’s so many more ways to summon that imposter syndrome. Suddenly, on top of everything else, you live in fear of being the one that bursts the magic bubble that the Little Critters live in this time of year. With that one, you know full well that if you get found out, you’ll spend the rest of your life on your very own naughty list! And, worse, theirs!
And, no matter how organised your naughty and nice list, they’re still lists of Endless Things to Do. It’s brain whirr season, for sure. If you are still trying to channel ice queen cool through sheer grit and determination alone, consider the potential boon of taking L-theanine. It’s in green tea, but that doesn’t feel quite so seasonal, so for a very reliable and measured source, don’t forget to get some WillPowders Calm in your Christmas war chest. Dropping a couple of these could calm the nerves and soothe the mind. May the only jitter you get be a jitterbug to the Fairytale of New York with your very own scumbag!
H is for Hacky Christmas Survival Guide
When you hack into your body’s natural abilities, things just seem to get a little easier. It’s like, wow, look at that - my mind and my body, like two ice dancers at their peak in the Winter Olympics, coming along for the ride together with a rousing soundtrack to match. Learning to hack for calm, for fat burning and for chasing away those sugar cravings can be a revelation. Suddenly, it’s not just your mind doing the work, your body is pulling more than its own weight for you. The cognitive knowledge bits that you can gain when you learn to hack mean that your body can’t really help but follow. You need both bits of that system - the mind and the body - to step out of old habits and into, ultimately, easier new ones.
Learning to keep it going under the heat of Christmas pressure is a whole new art form so, over the years, we’ve put together a wealth of helpful information in our Biohacking Blogs. Dip in and see what appeals.
A is for At Capacity Candle
Who doesn’t want a candle in their lives that smells like some sort of divine temple of heaven but doesn’t have all the potentially toxic fumes of your more traditional candle fayre? And who doesn’t look better candlelit? No one. It’s the original soft focus. Coconut oil and all natural essential oils for fragrance and a moisturiser too? Yup - multi-tasking is the new way for candles with WillPowders. That’s right - light it up, let it melt and bask in the gorgeous glow and fragrance. Blow it out, dip your fingers in and treat your skin to some coconut oil moisturisation. With the scent of mimosa, orange blossom and jasmine, it’s a welcome break from the sickly fake scents of Christmas puddings and winter spice that are never out of our nostrils this time of year.
Plus, girl code dictates that we will never tell anyone that you bought one as a gift for a friend for Christmas then decided to keep it for yourself and swapped her to a WillPowders Towel instead. I mean, that lucky duck got to go abroad for Christmas while you’ll be slogging it out in Samesville (only now it's adorned with fairy lights) so, in a way, she owes you!
N is for a nod pointing you to Christmas Bundles - let the WillPowder Elves curate your choices
While you’re curating everyone else’s Christmas fun and joy, let us curate some for you. Get ahead of the Christmas Curveball and just get yourself one of our Christmas Bundles to cut out all the crap of cobbling things together at the last minute. Instead, you get to sleigh the season with all the slickness of a slab of ice. With Calm, Brain Powder, Spice and Rise & Shine all ready to beaver away for you with all the vim and vigour of Santa’s Elves in November, you’ll have the chance of doing better with feelings of a soothed, but focussed, mind, knowing you could well be taking care of inflammation and supporting your liver from any overindulgence. We’ve even included an At Capacity Candle for serene moments of Christmas peace and feelings of goodwill to all men (no matter how fleeting they may be when they ask, what did ‘we’ get my mum for Christmas? See I for Instant Reset Tin - because that’s what ‘we’ got her, dearest!).
I is for Instant Reset Stash Tin
Any time, any place, anywhere - it’s in the Stash Tin! It’s a fab gift for the WillPowders curious. It’s a fab sample tin of sachets. It’s a fab mini-break tin of tools. And it is most certainly better than the ubiquitous biscuit tin this time of year. Our Stash Tin is full of funk in style and looks and full of your favourite food tools. Need a quick hydrating soft drink? Fill your boots, Santa! All three ElectroTide flavours are in there. Need a sweet snack? You go for it with a Little Saint Snack Sachet of Protein Powder! The milk chocolate flavour’s award winning, don’t you know? Need to feed your brain some quick energy before you faceplant in the Christmas Tree in the hunt for a hanging chocolate bauble? Don’t risk taking your eye out amongst the pine needles. There’s MCT Keto Creamer sachets - our equivalent of Three Wise Men helping you make wiser choices - in there for that! Our Swiss Bovine Collagen Sachets may also help with sugar cravings so we popped some of those in too. And when you struggle to name the day in those hazy half days of Betwixtmas, there’s Brain Powders for that in there too! All in all, it’s Santa’s belt and braces so no-one’s caught with their pants down - unless you want to be. Ooh-la-la! It is Christmas, after all!
C is for collagen - potential to counteract the crummy effects of all the stress!
There’s no doubt about it, we tend to have nervous systems on red alert in December and through into the New Year’s festivities. If there’s one thing that science tells us, it’s that stress affects our body’s ability to produce collagen #sadfaceonmanylevels. A little self-care with nutrition choices this year might include supporting your body by supplementing the amino acids and peptides that have come from bovine collagen, are bioavailable, and may well go on to help your own body with its collagen production. For a gut that might have had to digest some, let’s say, unusual choices, over the festive season, it’s a potential way to give it some love.
S is for Sod It! Keep Christmas in the smallest of ways, if that’s all you can manage
Ultimately, it’s one day. Mutter the word Jesus, at some point, even if it is only in exasperation at the shitty Secret Santa gift you got. Light a candle. Stick on a movie - a slasher if need be. Tell whoever needs to hear it that you love them. Raise a glass to absent friends. Snuggle the dog. Go for a wild walk and watch Mother Nature carry on regardless. Let the world turn, as it will. Breathe.
We love you! x
Recipes
Keto Mince Pies
Keep your mince pies keto this Christmas and pimp them with some sneaky nutrition the WillPowders Way!
WillPowders Non Alcoholic Mulled Wine
Mulled wine done the WillPowders Way! Packed with sleep inducing, hormone loving and stress reducing ingredients, our Cherry Mulled Wine will see you sailing through Christmas and coming out the...
