The Season of Temptation

Reflected candy corn.
Image via Wikipedia

The Season of Temptation has officially begun.  It’s that last 3 months of the year that has a tendency to add 5-10 pounds to our New Year’s Resolution.  Of course they rolled out the candy over a month ago.  I think I actually started seeing Halloween decorations and costumes in JULY.  But I resisted.  Mostly.  I did give in and buy ONE small bag of candy corn, which I was good and mixed with peanuts (which, I’m telling you, is the perfect salty sweet snack) and made little baggies of the mix that were only 150 calories and 6 grams of fat apiece.  Which is perfect if you can stop at 1 bag (1/4 cup).  Bad if you can’t because the stuff is CRACK.

In the five years we’ve been in our current house, we’ve only had 4 trick or treaters, so I generally don’t actually BUY Halloween candy.  Because we all know that if you bring it in the house, you’ll eat AT LEAST half of it.  Smarties.  Reece’s cups.  Skittles.  Starburst.  Sour Patch Kids.   And if you don’t actually have trick or treaters, then you wind up eating all of it.  And that doesn’t do anybody any good.

And THEN, as if that wasn’t bad enough, after Halloween, they start marking it down.  So that if you didn’t give in initially, the siren song of But it’s on SALE begins to lure you in. Because of course you need sugar to fuel your sleepless creativity during the month of November, when you, and hundreds of thousands of other people decide to pen their 50,000 word opus.  And you’re not actually EXERCISING during this period.  Because since that incident where you tried to write on the treadmill and your laptop crashed down and cracked the screen, you’ve learned your lesson.

Then you only surface for Thanksgiving where you’re going to stuff yourself silly with turkey and dressin’ (or stuffing for you crazy Yankees) and sweet potato casserole and pecan pie and all kinds of other once or twice a year delicacies.  And when you emerge from the initial turkey coma, you’re gonna do it all over again with the leftovers while you push through the final days of insanity to try and reach 50k.

Then comes December.  Season of holiday parties.  The time when the break room at work is constantly full of cookies and candies and other delectable goodies.  I’ll just have one turns into half a dozen passes…a day.  And it’s all SO GOOD.  Everybody’s eating it.  No matter how good your intentions to avoid it, someone’s gonna come knocking on your office door with a plate or bring you edible gifts that you can’t NOT eat…it would be rude.  And pretty soon it’s all spiraled completely out of control and you’re following that magnificent Christmas dinner with shooters of Pepto.

From Passionate About Baking...you must make these

And then the sugar coma passes and you start eying the scale.  You know, that thing that got shoved into the corner of your bathroom and has a small mountain of dust?  Maybe you want to get it over with the day after Christmas. Maybe you’d prefer to wait until New Year’s Day.  Either way, that little contraption is going to sound the death knell to your denial about how much your hips have expanded.

Unless you had a plan.  Unless you faced down the Season of Temptation and CONQUERED ALL with extra workouts, smaller portions, and a strengthened ability to say no. I’m definitely on board with the extra workouts.  And I’ll be balancing out all the rich food with lots of extra veggies.  It’s the saying no part that I have issue with.

So how about it?  Do you have  a plan to prevent the holiday bulge?  Share your secret with us in comments.

15 thoughts on “The Season of Temptation

  1. I actually got up this morning and walked on the treadmill for 20 minutes. I NEVER exercise in the mornings, but I think this is the only way I’m going to make time. And I might exercise again in the evenings on the days I can, but something different. Maybe the Wii, or weights. I want to really get into the habit of exercising every day so that by the time the holidays roll around, it will be a STRONG habit.

    One thing that helps me at Thanksgiving is to not eat anything I don’t LOVE. I can have mashed potatoes anytime, but how often do I get dressing? So I stick to the things I really want and leave off the things I’m so-so about, or at least just eat a tiny amount of it. That candy corn is a problem, though. I usually just try not to buy a bag. I like your idea of mixing it with peanuts.

    1. Oh but it’s IMPERATIVE that you immediately separate it into single serve bags. Then put those out of sight. Because, I’m telling you…CRACK.

      See, the food we have at Thanksgiving is all non-everyday food, and I love it ALL…I get it twice a year–Thanksgiving and Christmas. Actually those meals wouldn’t break me. It’s just the constant temptation EVERYWHERE. The office is really bad. And my willpower is…well, it just can’t take the siege.

  2. Man, even those pictures look fattening. I was tempted to lick my screen. But no. I think this year maybe I’ll vacation for three months in a country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving OR Christmas!

  3. I am lucky to be blessed with a boyfriend who does not have any kind of sweet tooth. By knocking dessert out of my diet I save a lot of trouble. I still love food so every morning before work I get up and do 2 of those 10 minute work outs. Well, most of the time. No idea how this will work for Nano.

    Also, I cheat. I bring any extra desserts from relatives to the office.

    Other methods include parking in the farthest spot earlier and drinking tea with no milk, just artificial sweetener or non at all. Really important, avoid the soda. If hungry try drinking a whole glass of water before indulging in food.

  4. I’m lucky. Most places don’t have gluten-free treats. I asked in Tesco’s again this morning and NO GLUTEN-FREE MINCE PIES.
    IT’S A CONSPIRACY.
    And a very cruel one, but hey, at least I scored gluten-free breadcrumbs for the gluten-free treacle tart I’m making today. That is definitely not on the Healthy Things To Eat list. Thankfully if I want it I have to make it. Starting to think it’ll be the same with the mince pies. Which tends to keep the calories at bay because there’s only so much cooking and baking I’m prepared to do just for one person.

    BUT… my stepmother is also gluten-intolerant… AHA!!!

  5. Girl, I fail miserably this time of year. And I have a large family (on both sides) and everyone wants to host some extravagant shindig at their house and you be ‘damned’ if you don’t bring a dish and while you’re at it, you better not walk out the house w/out fixing you a plate to go. IT’S CRAZY! So I no longer mention lose weight during my new year’s resolution, instead I try to work on that throughout the year so that if I splurge I’ve got some ‘cushion’. LOL. Gr8 Idea add more veggies to your plate + extra workouts to ‘lessen the flubber drama’. LOL but I’ll definitely have to try the candy corn snack!

  6. 1) Yuck, I don’t like Halloween candy. I’m actually a bit bah-humbug about the holiday and glad we don’t get many trick-or-treaters. 2) I’m the one bringing the baked goodies to the office (when I worked in an office) maw-ha-ha.

    My big plan for the holidays…don’t have one 🙂 We’re 5 hours away from our nearest family so no worries about leftovers or extra baked deliciousness. My trick to not pigging out on the baked goodies I do make this time of year is to store it all in the freezer. I’m usually not patient enough to wait for it to thaw so I pass, LOL.

          1. Well, I was thinking something along the lines of pumpkin with chocolate chips made with whole wheat or GF flour, replacing half the oil with applesauce, etc. 🙂 Yeah, I need to post that recipe…stay tuned.

  7. A big issue for me is I’m allergic to gluten- I can’t absorb iron when I eat it, which means I get tired and lethargic and I don’t work out, which makes the evil finger wagging you should voices in my head jump up and down screaming and then I eat more to drown them out- it’s a bad cycle.
    I don;t have a plan yet… but it looks like I’ll need one.

    1. This was a very fattening post, thank you – now I want a Reeces Cup. Just kidding. I was in the habit recently walking two miles a couple times a week, need to hop back into it. Very depressing when you step on the scale in the morning and it doeesn’t seem to move. As to temptation, I’m a guy so it’s difficult for me to resist anything. LOL.

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