Tricks and Treats – Happy All Hallows Eve!

I was walking down the grocery store aisle yesterday checking out all the Halloween costumes and couldn’t believe it’s almost November. How can that be?! Then it dawned on me that this is the time of year that holiday treats are marketed to us within an inch of our lives. It starts with Halloween, and before you know it out come the New Years resolutions. Whoosh! Just like that.

It begins with the jumbo bags of bite-sized Milky Way bars and boxes of candy coated apples everywhere when summer has barely bid adieu. On any given day, I wouldn’t think about a caramel coated red delicious apple sprinkled with walnuts, but today…mmm, sounds kind of good!

So when does it make sense to indulge in a treat or two because we really want it? How can we distinguish a visual temptation and a real internal cue that says, ‘I would really enjoy something sweet?’ Sometimes it’s bloody hard to tell. It’s a trick and treaty kinda time.

At this time of year it’s important that we make a real attempt to tune into hunger and listen for those internal cues and make wise choices whenever possible. Doesn’t mean a candied apple isn’t in your future, it just means that if your New Year’s resolutions usual includes laying off sugar, or eating less and exercising more, you may want to think now about putting some healthy lifestyle strategies in place. Try to keep yourself at the top of your priority list (yes, even at the holidays!), lest you find yourself in a puddle at the end of the day with a bag of half eaten candy corn.

Great recipe for caramel covered apples here.

Tags: hunger management , snacking , intuitive eating , healthy eating

Written by Cindy