This week marks the beginning of season’s eatings – starting with Halloween and ending with New Year’s Day. Many of us tend to lose focus on health this time of year and start nibbling on that easily accessible candy and other indulgences, and never stop. The next thing you know you’ve opened the door to all kinds of crazy cravings and habits. Here are my top 5 ways to avoid all of the sugary nibbling nonsense and enter 2015 with your goals and waistline in tact. Choose one or two, and let me know how they work out for you.
1. Throw out the trash. When the kids come in with Halloween candy this Friday, give them a small amount and get the rest of it out of your house. It is not your duty to help them eat it, and it is certainly not being a bad parent to take some of it away. Guess what? If you do it while they aren’t looking, they usually won’t even notice anyway. Another way to do it is to check for local dentists who have candy buy back programs. Our dentist will give one dollar for each pound of candy we bring in this weekend. I love it!
2. Say no to office nibbling. The workplace is the most calorie dense place in your life right now, starting this week and lasting all the way until the end of the year. There are parties, and people bringing junk so it won’t be in their houses, and people showing off their baking skills. You do not need to fall victim to someone else’s agenda. If you make the workplace the no nibble zone, you’ve won most of the battle. Don’t say a little, just say absolutely NO.
3. Be prepared for the battle. You know failing to plan is planning to fail. Be equipped with your own healthier snack options so that when they offer you the donuts, the cake, the cookies, you can say no thank you, and retreat to your own little stash of homemade garlic kale chips, or whatever tasty goodness you took the time to prepare for yourself.
4. Have a specialty. Can’t say no to sweet, and salty, and crunchy and fatty? Then pick one. Mine is chocolate, and I mean high quality chocolate. They can come through the office with all the Krispy Kreme and fried chicken and red velvet cake they want to. But if someone shows up with some Godiva, it’s on. I will allow myself a bit of that, and keep it moving. Not Hershey’s, not Linder’s, but Godiva, or maybe See’s, or some other high quality dark chocolate. You may love all of the above just like I do, but making a decision to allow yourself to have one is certainly better than having no limits at all.
