Information Every Dieter Needs To Know: Halloween is when the annual holiday weight gain starts.

While the month of December is typically blamed for the season’s holiday weight gain, I’m warning those of you who want to either lose weight or at least not gain weight, to be aware that from Halloween on, if you aren’t making the right choices, the pounds will start to accumulate.

The amount of eats and treats people consume is alarming. One of the main problems is the smaller ‘snack sizes’ that the candy manufacturers have made available. Eating several ‘mini’ chocolate bars is something people see as ‘ok’ because of their smaller size. In other words, it becomes a lot easier to convince yourself to indulge in these gut-swelling goodies and then you end up eating even more than you would if you only had fill-sized candy bars!

Here is one of the most important tips I tell people who want to adopt a more wholistic over-all Wellness: “It is very SIMPLE to lose weight, stay in shape, minimize stress, etc., … But it is not EASY! That means once you have the correct information and know what you need to do to reach your wellness goals, you must continually make the right choices - Even though your moods and circumstance might entice you to do other-wise.”
(This is so important, I encourage you to write my quote down and put it where you will see it every day!)

To Help:
Here are three figure-saving tips I have used with great success with my fitness clients to help them keep the pounds off while still allowing for the occasional Halloween treat during pumpkin season:

1) Workout with Pumpkins: I’ll be posting some photos of these, but it’s easy to get some amazingly fun and effective seasonal fat-loss workouts involving only your body weight and you guessed it… a pumpkin! These high-intensity, metabolism-boosting workouts can take as little as twenty minutes to complete and will have you burning tons of calories during the workouts AND even more calories while you’re resting... because you’ve speeded up your metabolism.

2) Make Healthier Halloween Recipes: Use your favorite recipe or cookbook and find great tasting ways to incorporate or replace another ingredient with pumpkin. It’s easy to add canned pumpkin to soups, breads, dips for parties, and of course pies! Pumpkins are loaded with an important antioxidant, beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is one of the plant carotenoids converted to vitamin A in the body. In the conversion to vitamin A, beta carotene performs many important functions in overall health.

Current research indicates that a diet rich in foods containing beta-carotene may reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer and offers protect against heart disease. Beta-carotene offers protection against other diseases as well as some degenerative aspects of aging.

It is imperative to be able to think outside the box by substituting healthier ingredients where possible for a more figure-friendly Halloween without overly sacrificing the taste you crave. (1 cup of cooked (baked or boiled) Pumpkin will be only 49 Calories  but will provide 2 grams of Protein, 12 grams of Carbohydrate, 3 grams of Dietary Fiber and 37mg of Calcium 37 mg.)

3) Use Common Sense:
- Only buy enough candy so that you expect to run out before the evening is over. It’s crucial to weight loss success to not have “trigger” foods lying around – the temptation is often too great.

- Allow yourself just one piece of candy in the morning and then one at night. If you do eat the candy, skip any desserts that you would normally eat after dinner. Also, be sure to increase your exercise activity. If you can fit in thirty minutes more than you usually do on most days you will help prevent the pound-creepage. This will counteract the increase in fat and sugar calories you are consuming.

- Studies show if you have candy sitting in a bowl next to you. You will eat more of it than if you have to get up and walk to get it. So, …keep it far away on someone else’s desk at work.

One of my beliefs is that we must break out of the frustrating emotional eating patterns that sabotage our fat loss efforts during the holidays. Our brains are hard-wired from when we were children to crave the sugar-laded treats that typify the holidays, starting with Halloween all the way through Christmas and New Year’s season. I’m not saying don’t eat any candy or deserts or have your favorite eggnog, but the key is to adopt a healthy lifestyle for long-term success.

Are you’re stuck with not knowing what to do and how to make the right wellness choices regarding any aspect from food to exercise to stress? I can help you.

If you have any secrets that help you get through the holiday season, please leave a comment here on how you plan to get through un-scathed. We all will learn from each other!

P.S. Boo!