Here are several tips to avoid eating the Halloween candy in the first place.

1. Don't buy trigger treats. Everyone has treats that they simply can't say no to. These are trigger foods. If you love chocolate, don't buy anything with chocolate. That goes for the rest of the family too. Figure their trigger foods and avoid buying those to hand out.

2. Keep the candy out of site, and then it's out of mind and mouth. Store the candy in the trunk of your car, in the garage, or in the basement. Put it in a messy room you hate going into.

3. Don't buy any candy until Halloween. You will save money and have less days of temptation.

4. Start a diet. Taking control of your diet during times of temptation can set you up for success if you have the right tools in place. You will need a plan and accountability to a coach to stay on the plan. First, record your diet as research shows that keeping a food journal doubles your weight loss results. Second show it to a nutrition coach will yield even better results. At HPT we say, “write it as you bite it”. Contact HPT today to start any nutrition program. Mention this post and save 15% on any program if you sign up by 11/15/19.

Here are a few tips for your kid's candy.

1. Implement a buyback program. For the right price, you can buy back the candy from your kid.

2. The fun is done after they had their fill. After they fill up on a healthy meal or snack, let them eat what they want, but after that it goes in the donate or buyback pile. As a teenager, I once ate so many peanut butter cups, I didn't eat another for 5 years. Use caution with this method as you do not want to turn your kid into a binger.

3. Have a little now, have a little later. Let them keep some of their favorites for now and some for a treat later. Keep in mind the average piece of Halloween candy is around 80 calories and 2.5 teaspoons of sugar. You would never just let your kid eat 2 and a half teaspoons of sugar as a treat would you? Then why is 2.5 teaspoons of sugar packaged up every day okay? By definition, treats are occasional items and there is nothing wrong with having a treat occasionally. You just have to set the rules in your household for what is ideal for your family.

Hopefully you were able to hand out all the candy, but if not, here is what to do with the leftovers.

1. Give it away. You can donate it to the troops such as Operation Gratitude, to a food shelter, or give to some sick kids and their families at Ronald McDonald house. HPT will be a candy drop-off site for Operation Gratitutde. Candy must be donated by Nov 8th 12pm.

2. Throw it away. Ultimately the cost in time and money spent on burning the candy calories will far exceed what you lost in throwing it away.

3. Burn to earn. Make it a rule for every 100 calories you or your child consume, you will both will burn off with 15 minutes of: pushups, squats, and leg raises. FYI, pushups only burn 7 calories a minute so it will take 14 minutes of pushups to burn off those 100 calories of candy. This can be a fun family togetherness activity!

4. Make it inconvenient. If you can't give it away, make it as inconvenient to eat as possible. If it's downstairs frozen in the basement freezer, you will burn some calories off getting there and you will have to wait for it to thaw.

What to do if you fail and eat the candy?

First, all is not lost, stop and get back on track immediately. If you screwed up, this is not a license to do whatever you want until Monday. Stop the insanity and clean it up right now. You don't have to crash your car just because you got a fender bender. Pop out the dent and eat clean now.

Second, there are some supplements you can do that do damage control. Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) has been show to decrease weight gain when calories are temporarily higher. R-lipoic Acid and Glucosupreme both work to increase insulin sensitivity and shuttle the extra carbs into your muscle and liver as opposed to fat cells. I recommend any of these or a combination of these products when clients have cheat meals.

Here is the protocol for one or more of these products:

·Conjugated Linoleic Acid (1000mg per cap): 2 caps at breakfast (or lunch) and 3 at dinner.

·R-lipoic acid (stabilized form, 100 mg per cap): 1 cap at breakfast, 1 at lunch, 1 at dinner

·Glucosupreme: 2 caps at breakfast, 2 caps at lunch, 2 caps at dinner

Mention this post and save 25% on any of these products by Nov 15th. These also work great for your Thanksgiving meal!

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