“Trick-or-Treat!  Give me something good to eat!” is a familiar song to many of us and our childhood days of dressing up in costumes and searching for our favorite candy and goodies! But watch out as some of these candies and bite-size treats can add up to extra calories quickly if we fall into some common traps. Doing the following five things will cause a penalty flag to be thrown over Halloween candy! The penalty you ask? Possible weight around your mid-line!

• Penalty #1 – Halloween Candy Baskets: If you are like my mom, she has multiple decorative and festive baskets full of candy this time of year. The pretty burnt orange and gold wrappers just sparkle from the basket. But wait! Oftentimes, these pretty little baskets with bite-size goodies can kill our waistline as they aren’t just there Halloween day; they are out all month! A bite of chocolate is not a bad thing, but a bite every time you pass the basket can be! 50 calories often can be 500 calories if you don’t watch out. 

• Penalty #2 – Keeping the Candy: Once Halloween is over, ditch the candy. With Halloween on a Sunday this year, this could get you in trouble for the rest of the week!  Penalties everywhere! THROW. IT. AWAY. If candy is there, most of us will eat it. So, do yourself a favor and get rid of it as if it is not there, then you can’t eat it. Plus, with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, more candy and baked goods will be making its way into your house. So, send it with your kids and get rid!

• Penalty #3 – “It’s small so I can have two…or three”: Our brains are tricky little things and oftentimes when we eat small things, the brain does not register bite-size goodies as a whole. For instance, most of us would eat one sandwich, but cut that bad body in fourths and have it out for snack food at a shower or party and it’s easy to eat 8 fourths! Well, that is two sandwiches! Same with bite-size candy. Many bite-size candy bars have 60-80 calories so that is great if you eat one, but if you eat three you have 200 or more calories and you don’t feel like you ate anything. The best rule of thumb is get one and walk away from the candy jar, basket or pile!

• Penalty #4 – Finishing off what your kids left: Lots of parents finish off with their child did not eat. Whether it be chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, French fries left on a plate or the remainder of their bite size candy bar or bag, it adds up! So, try to break the habit of eating the rest of what your child or spouse did not eat. This will save you some extra calories!

• Penalty #5 – BLTs (Bites, Licks and Tastes): BLTs get many people in trouble calorically.  We typically don’t nibble on broccoli; nope we nibble on high calorie foods. A lick of the cookie pumpkin batter here, a bite of a Halloween ghost cookie there or a taste of your child’s trick-or-treat goodies can add up! BLTs, like small bite-size foods, don’t always register eating a whole or creating fullness. I am not saying it is easy to avoid these, but Halloween kicks off the holiday season of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s parties, family gatherings and delicious comfort foods and desserts and if you are not careful, it will add an inch to your hips. So, as you cook, bake and attend parties this holiday season, put some gum in your mouth to keep you from nibbling your way to extra pounds!