Admit it…the minute you bought the Halloween candy, you started eating it piece by piece. You told yourself you were only going to have ONE piece of chocolate, but that one little piece…that one “funsize” Snickers bar…turned into several more. And that was just in the first few minutes of opening the bag.
Come on people, I know I’m not the only one.
But I really did try to break the cycle of bad. I put off the candy buying until today. I told myself a little white lie that I would lock it all up until at least Saturday. But my daughter was quite right when she said I should have waited until Halloween morning to buy any candy. Of course, she said this as she was filling her fists with tiny Reese’s peanut butter cups and Kit Kat bars, to stuff into her purse. And once the candy bags were opened I was powerless to resist.
I didn’t count how many bite size Snickers I have eaten. And in an attempt to fool myself (and everyone else,) I hid the evidence so even I can’t figure it out after the fact. The truth is I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know how weak my resolve was. I don’t want to know how flimsy my willpower has become. And believe me; I don’t want to know how many pounds I have gained since two-thirty today when I paid for the bags of candy that are even now calling me from my kitchen counter.
I would lie just a little bit more and say that it will only be a few days of binging on junk and then Halloween will be over and I can go back to eating salads and tofu (as if I was eating that before!) but we all know that would be more than a little white lie. It would be a great big fat chocolate lie! Because this week begins a downward spiral of sweets and goodies that will stretch out through the end of October, through November and December, and will only come to a screeching halt on January first when we make our annual resolutions to lose weight and eat healthier.
It’s a time honored tradition. The stuffing of the holiday bird…only we appear to be the birds! Why is it that we indulge so thoroughly on treats for the entire fourth quarter of the year? Is it the weather? The waning daylight? The holidays themselves? Or is it just habit?
I suppose I don’t need to know the hows and whys of the whole thing. I just need to be more mindful of my chocolate intake. I may actually slip away in the night from insulin shock after all of the candy I’ve eaten today.
But the good news is that I may have burned myself out on Halloween candy…at least for a few days…and by then the candy will be gone. I will just have to diet like crazy until Thanksgiving, and then diet again until I start baking for Christmas. I can do that. It’s less than three months until my New Year’s Resolution goes into effect and I hold myself accountable for my bad habits during the “season’s eatings”. (I borrowed this phrase from author Michelle Bardsley, so thank you Michelle for a great phrase to sum up the feeding frenzy)
And after spending the entire month of January whipping myself back into shape, I should be quite proud of myself. I will be back into my skinny jeans, and ready for a new wardrobe…
Just in time for the Girl Scout cookies to go on sale and derail me until Spring!
Until the next time…I’ll be stuffing all of the chocolate into a padlocked safe until Halloween!