Eating Healthy This Halloween

By: Dr. Margaret Lewin, Medical Director of Cinergy Health

Careful as we are all year, we seem to lose our inhibitions against junk food when Halloween rolls around – snacking on the sugar-laden treats we bought for neighbors’ children as well as the ones our own children bring home from their trick-or-treating. Here are some tips for resisting temptation:

Buy treats only a day or so before Halloween – so they’re not around long to tempt you

Keep the treats in an inconvenient, difficult-to-reach place till Halloween arrives

Buy treats which you don’t particularly like, making it easier to resist

Buy healthy mini-packs of

• Raisins or other dried fruit
• 100% juice
• Sugar-free hot chocolate mix
• Trail mix
• Cheese and crackers
• Sugar-free gum

Buy non-edible treats such as

• Stick-on temporary tattoos
• Mini bottles of bubble bath or blow bubbles
• Costume accessories such as wax false teeth or a stick-on mustache
• Sidewalk chalk

Take your children out after dinner – when you’re not hungry

Go through the “goodie bag” when you arrive home – discarding any outrageously unhealthy treats or those with questionable packaging

Put the remaining edible treats in that same difficult-to-reach place – to be dispensed one at a time on a scheduled basis (such as dessert time)

When you yourself get that urge to indulge, take a look at your watch and wait ten minutes (if you’re lucky, you’ll get distracted and forget about the urge)

Set a date – maybe two weeks after Halloween – when you’ll dump the leftovers

So… plan ahead and – when it comes to the leftovers – think “waist” instead of “waste”!