Eating Season is almost here!

Halloween will soon be upon us. I noticed the other day at the supermarket the stockpiles of Halloween candy on the shelves.

Two years ago, feeling fairly smug and confident, I bought "GOOD" Halloween candy. (Good translates to Halloween candy that I like to eat!) We had hardly any Trick or Treaters that year and I was left with a bucket full of sugary and chocolaty treats. Those treats became a significant problem for several days after Halloween - because heaven knows, I certainly couldn't throw all that expensive (and tasty) candy away! I couldn't dump the treats at work either because Halloween was on a Thursday and we had an inservice off site on November 1. I was "stuck" with the left over mini candy bars all weekend (and secretly delighted about it, too, hindsight what it is). Clearly my behaviors of obesity were in full control.

Last year was a lot better, but not as good as I wanted. This year, I already have my plan in place. Actually, I have two plans.

Plan 1: Avoid Trick or Treat night altogether. Go out to a movie. Keep the house nice and dark. Come home late.

Plan 2: By the type of cheap-o candy that I detest and buy only the smallest bag available.

Either plan will work well for me. Plan 2 is doable because I'm a total snob/snot about Halloween candy. If I buy stuff I don't like, I won't eat it.

To be honest, I now consider Halloween the beginning of the gorging or eating season. In American culture I think we've started to just accept that from Halloween until New Year's Day it's "Eating Season". Then January hits and it's all about "Diet Season"!

If you're more than 4 months post op, the "Eating Season" can be tricky to navigate. What are you doing to prepare? (Believe me, your restriction will do very little to limit grazing on the carb and sugar laden foods available during the Eating Season.)

Long before I ever decided to have bariatric surgery, I devised a method of celebrating Halloween without gorging on the candy. Our community allows trick-or-treaters to do their thing between 6pm and 8pm on Halloween only. I bought the candy -- always chocolate 'cause that's what the little ghouls like! -- about one hour before zero hour. Believe me, there's still plenty left in the store.

Back home, I dumped the candy into the serving cauldron, and then took the rest of the hour to set up the lights and decorations on the front porch and dress myself up as a witch (hey, grownups can have fun on Halloween too!). No candy to eat -- too busy. At 6pm the goblins started arriving almost nonstop until about 7:30pm, when the crowd began to thin out. Another strategy -- I handed out the candy by the fistful. The kids loved it, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the tempting candy disappear almost completely.

Edited to add: I always kept count of the number of kids we got. Our highest number was 86!

I even had a solution for the possibility of leftover candy. When a homeowner runs out of candy, he/she turns off the porch light, which is the signal to the kids and their parents that Halloween is over at that house. When I had about a few handfuls of candy left, I dumped all of it into a lucky, last-minute trick-or-treater's bag and then turned off my porch light. Halloween over and not once piece of candy eaten by me!

That's Halloween taken care of. I could use some ideas for Thanksgiving and Christmas, though. They're a lot tougher to get through.

psychoticparrot

Luckily for me, candy has never been my real vice--unluckily for me, comfort foods are, which means Thanksgiving is the danger zone. I've been on diets the last 2 Thanksgivings, so I'm used to the 'take very small bits of the "bad" foods (stuffing, potatoes) and larger portions of the 'good' foods (turkey, veggies)," so Thanksgiving shouldn't be too hard for me--turkey is PACKED with protein and is delicious! I just need to resign myself to the idea that mashed potatoes and stuffing may not be in the cards for me (and honestly, if I REALLY want them, I can have one small bite of each, but ultimately, eating a lot of them won't make me feel good, so why have more than a bite of each?).

I'm so glad to have such a massive support system, both on this site and offline. I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving twice, both times with people who have either had WLS or have had major success losing weight through dietary changes, so they'll be understanding about my situation.

My plan is similar. Years ago we'd get a TON of trick-or-treaters. We'd need four bags of candy.

But each year we get less and less kids, so one bag will cover it. I'll buy something the kiddos will like, but that won't tempt me.

(maybe Laffy Taffy. Or Starburst. something chewy that I'm afraid will hurt my dental work!)

I am taking off the regain (almost five years post-op) and need to keep temptation out of my house.

This will be my 3rd Halloween since my weight-loss surgery. I did better the first year than I did last year. Last year was a disaster! I was in maintenance, exercising a lot and thought I could "handle" having the candy around. HA!

This year we got a container of those little pretzel packets at Sam's Club. Perfect because I'm not going to eat those. And I could care less if the neighborhood kiddos like them or not I can't completely avoid Halloween this year because we'll have my niece and two nephews and of course we're taking them trick-or-treating! They're going as Minions, hubby will be Gru and I'll be Scarlett Overkill

I don't have to host Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, which makes it easier for me. I don't volunteer to bring desserts and I do my best to eat moderately. Last year we did a 5K Turkey Trot before dinner and we're signed up again this year.

My biggest temptations during the holiday season are at work because it's a never-ending stream of sugar coming into this office from now until "diet season". I did a lot better at handling it last year than I did during my first holiday season at this employer. Now I know what I need to do. Now for the willingness to execute that plan every day

Man I miss this place. I need to carve out time to get here more often.

Yes - I buy the crap cheapo candy that I wont eat. I might go the pretzel route -- honeslty kids get way too much candy and we are just pushing them down our same path.

Tracy - yes the work situation can be a nightmare. I started a new position in early June and there are some bad offenders, but the leadership is actually very against it, so we might be creating a no junk sharing environmnet. I can only hope! I have such a hard time of saying no to cookies calling my name.

Stacy - I miss this place, too! I was just thinking that. And then I saw this great and timely topic and I realize that I need to find time to come back for motivation, for inspiration, to feel like I'm back in the game. Because eating season is upon us and I'll be at one-year out on Dee. 2 and it's easier to screw up now!

I am going to try all of these tricks NOT to treat too much this Halloween! NOT AT ALL!

So glad to be back. :)

I'm lucky when it comes to extra Halloween candy. my work collects the leftover unwanted candy to send to the troops overseas and because of that we avoid buying chocolate. for holiday baking, anything that we have left we take to the local fire station. That way the "bad" is out of the house and is given to those who will enjoy the treat.

So..... a couple weeks ago I'm in the grocery store and walk past the Halloween candy.....

And I start laughing..... no one around..... thinking Uh Oh....... Devon....

I remember one of your past Halloween posts and you recited a long list of candy names with most I never heard of.... and thinking, I like candy, but Kairk has it bad !!!!

Every time I see a "Laffy Taffy" I think of you !!!!

frisco

Hate that Laffy Taffy stuff! I'm all about the chocolate, caramel and nuts. LOL!