All treats, no tricks

I used to torture my sister on a cold February day with candy that I had saved from Halloween. She tore through her candy, but not me. 

I saved and savored every piece and you can bet I saved the Snickers for last. 

Somewhere in those middle school years, I started avoiding candy, and started torturing myself around food. 

I started to fear holidays that had all the extras. 

Extra food, extra sweets, extra drinks, extra everything. 

Some of you might be dreading Halloween 👻 tomorrow with so many temptations and worries about being “bad”. 

I'm not worried anymore though, I'm excited. 

If you're still caught up in diet culture's way around sugar, you might be tempted to say to your kids:

“Keep that stuff away from me.”

“Tonight we’ll be bad, but tomorrow we’ll eat healthy.”

“We’re being so naughty.”

All of these thoughts come compliments of diet culture. Here's what you need to know. Eating any kind of food is never bad. All foods can be enjoyed without feeling guilty. Contrary to popular belief, sugar isn't the devil and won't kill you. And when you allow yourself to eat what you want and stop restricting, food will magically loose its “power” over you. 

You really do have the power to make Halloween fun and not fearful.

Here’s my top 10 ghoulish goals for Halloween: 

1. Give your kids (and yourself) regular meals and snacks on Halloween.

2. Don’t restrict certain foods, like carbs. This will have the exact opposite affect by triggering your body to want more high carb, high sugar foods later. 

3 Get in on the fun with your kids. Dress up, tell spooky stories, play a fun game, carve a pumpkin, play some favorite songs like "monster mash". 

4. When your kids get their candy, allow them to sort, organize and ohh and ahh at their treasures. LET THEM EAT WHATEVER THEY WANT. You can remind them that if they eat too much, their tummy might hurt, but that's the only warning they need. Their body's have a built in system that will tell them when it's time to stop. It's way more advanced than anything AI could create. 

5. Repeat the next day. Let them eat whatever they want, whenever they want. I don't recommend having the candy fairy come and take away their stash. You want your kids to know you trust them and they can trust themselves around any type of food. 

6. On Thursday and for the rest of the week, you can store the candy out of sight, but not hidden. Allow your kids to pick a piece of candy to have along with meals or snacks. 

7. The following week, go back to allowing the candy as their dessert and not during snack time. 

8. Tell your kids what your favorite candy is and ask them their favorite. 

9. Don't talk about calories or make judgements about yourself or your kids based on what they eat. 

10. Don't use COVID as an excuse to skip Halloween this year! 

*You can skip all these "rules" and just keep the Halloween stash out and see what happens. I enjoy having some sort of framework, but as much as possible, getting rid of rules around food is so important. as

My new book has even more ideas for how to handle any holiday filled with food. I promise it will be filled with all treats and no tricks. 

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