episode 199: a different take on halloween candy
Here we are again, back at Halloween. The time of year when everyone starts to panic about feeling out of control around food and gaining weight. First Halloween candy then rolling right into the holidays.
So today I’m sharing some simple ways to enjoy the candy without feeling guilty and how to shift the narrative from “I have no self-control” to “I just need to practice these skills.”
Why Halloween candy hits different than regular candy—and why that’s okay
The difference between guilt and shame when it comes to food.
Simple, practical tips to enjoy your favorite treats without feeling like you need to “earn” them.
How to handle having candy in the house without going into a “fuck it” spiral.
A mindset shift you can use when those negative thoughts start creeping in.
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199
[00:00:00] Hey everyone. Thank you for being here and listening to the Diet Diaries. Today's episode 199. Um, real talk. I've had like such a good string of ideas for the podcast. Like the last, I would say five to six weeks of episodes, I had had notes on or concepts written down well in advance. And I, last week's episode about food noise, I am obsessed with like, I love that episode.
And then I didn't have anything and I'm like, Oh my God, I have nothing to talk about. Obviously there's a million things to talk about, but like nothing was really calling to me. So a little bit by default, but also by timing, I figured let's talk about Halloween, right? This is going to come out on Monday, October 14th.
Halloween is two weeks away. There's lots of stuff around and I do a Halloween episode. I don't think I did one last year, but I've done them in the past. [00:01:00] And this is one of those things we can never hear enough times. And I'm not really sure how many people actually go back to like really old episodes.
Probably not a lot. So, let's repeat. Because we, my old mentor used to say, once is never. So we need to hear things, especially around this stuff, for lack of a better term, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times in order for it to really kind of click and sink in. And honestly, like, You're going to hear a lot of things about Halloween candy.
And at this point, I think it's even less of like, oh, well, if you eat one little fun sized Snickers bar, you have to burn off, you know, 110 calories on the treadmill or whatever it is. Like, I think there's less of that out there now. I think it is still out there. And there's more of like the, the practical, um, paying attention, being intentional, being thoughtful kind of stuff out there.
So part of me is like, you know, is it really worth it for me to talk through these things? [00:02:00] You know, which are skills like when you're starving, eat something that's going to fill you up first and then have some Halloween candy, right? It goes back to the jobs of foods, right? The job of Halloween candy is not to fill you up.
The job of Halloween candy is just to taste good and be fun to eat. So there are simple, not easy, simple skills that you can work on around this. One is the jobs of foods, identifying that the job of Halloween candy is not to fill you up. So if you're hungry, don't eat Halloween candy, eat something that's going to fill you up first, and then have some Halloween candy, right?
When you're eating it, sit down at a table, pay attention to it. Don't be on your phone. Don't be like running through the kitchen, because you're not even going to realize that you ate it and you won't get, you'll get a little bit of enjoyment from it, but not as much as you could have. And then you're going to be a lot more likely to want more.
Right? Try not to stand in front of the cabinet eating it straight from the thing [00:03:00] straight from like the you know your kid's thing and Be thoughtful about what you like maybe take a bunch of the things that you really love and put them in a separate bowl. And then when you want some, it's already kind of like filtered for you, right?
And you're going right for the stuff that you know you like versus making it harder to have to decide, oh, like there's a Milky Way, there's a Three Musketeers, there's a whatever thing that I don't happen to love, but it's there, so I'm going to grab it, right? So it's like priming your environment a little bit.
These are not new things. I've talked about these things before. You've heard other people talk about these things before. Um, But the thing, you'll also hear people say, well, you can go to the drugstore and buy the same candy bars any day of the week. And that is a thousand percent true. You can. None of this candy is unique and none of it is actually, um, kind of seasonal except for some things that may be like, like the Reese's pumpkin shape, you know, you can get this stuff anytime, but it is not the same [00:04:00] experience.
This is where I disagree with a lot of people out there. It is not the same experience is going to. a convenience store and buying a full size candy bar. There was something fun and alluring and just a different experience of these little small size candies. I think in part because there's so much of it around, which is very different.
When we go to buy a candy bar at a store, we're usually buying like one candy bar and it's like, we have to pick one thing. Now it's like the variety and the choices and the options. It's like, I can have this and I can have this and I can have this. And because they're small, there's this feeling of like, well, I can have one of those and I can have one of those and I can have one of those.
And yes, of course you can, right? It all depends on like how that's going to make you feel and what do you have going on in your life that you are trying to be taking action on or working on and does eating that fit with whatever you're working on, right? There's no right or wrong answer there. It's totally individualized and personal.
Um, but I do disagree when people say like, Oh, just go to the, you can just [00:05:00] go to the drugstore anytime of the year and buy the candy. Yeah, you can. It's not the same experience. It's personal. There is something really fun and special about having kind of this many options around. It's like, Oh my God, it literally feels like a kid in a candy store, right?
Like no pun intended. Um, and there is something fun and special about that. And for some people it's really overwhelming and scary because the feeling is, Oh my God, I'm going to eat all of it. And for some people it's like, well, I have to get rid of it. It cannot be in the house because I have no self control.
And I think that for me, that's really the biggest thing here is that belief. That you have no self control. That is not what this is about. You are not lacking self control. You are lacking skills that help you make thoughtful choices. Now, I will be totally honest with you and say that Halloween time is probably not the ideal time to really like throw yourself in and start mastering these skills.
I'm not saying don't practice them. I'm not saying don't use them at all. All I'm saying is [00:06:00] that for a lot of people. It might be easier to get rid of the Halloween candy afterwards because it's so overwhelming and the way we learn to have those foods around is by having them around in small quantities.
You don't learn to feel comfortable around a food by having it be all or nothing. Meaning like you don't learn, like with Halloween candy, you don't learn to eat candy by having your cabinet chock full of candy. for weeks. And you also don't learn how to do it by having no candy in the house at all.
Because each of those situations are extremes that lead us to extreme behavior. They're extreme situations that lead us to extreme behavior. And so if you feel like you need to not buy Halloween candy until the day of Halloween, go for it. Buy it the day of Halloween. And if you feel like you need to get rid of it or some, you know, really kind of like call it down.
to like just the basics of maybe a few things that you want and what you want your kids to have, that's okay. Like, [00:07:00] again, learning skills around food is, takes time and it's a process and it doesn't happen overnight. And doing it in extreme situations, and I would call Halloween an extreme situation, is really like not the ideal time.
Again, it doesn't mean you can't try any skills at all, it just means that you might need some extra support. You might need extra boundaries or extra structure in place, which means having a lot less of that Halloween candy around. Because that brings me back to what I started to talk about here is this idea of being out of control.
And this is not just about Halloween candy, right? We feel out of control around many foods, easy to overeat foods, calorically dense foods. We don't feel out of control around chicken best or broccoli or string beans or roasted veggies, right? We feel out of control around foods that are easy to overeat because they are designed as such, right?
It all makes sense, which I hope helps you take a little bit of like a sigh of relief and realize that like, it's not you. [00:08:00] It's the way some of these foods are designed, the accessibility of these foods, and that we have no skills, right? We are very much, we've been taught extreme behaviors, right? All or nothing.
I either say, fuck it, and I eat all the Halloween candy, and I binge it, or I say, I'm not having any Halloween candy. I'm not allowed, because once I have one, that's it. The boxes, the Pandora's box is open, and I can't stop myself. That's a shitty way to live. I've said this before in a bunch of social media posts.
It sucks to eat so much cake you feel suck, sick, and it equally sucks to not be able to eat any cake at all because you're terrified of it. Both of those suck. Same thing for the Halloween candy, same thing for the pizza, the chips, the ice cream, the desserts, whatever the foods are that you have trouble with, you are not out of control.
You just don't have skills and acknowledging that and giving yourself that self compassion and that kindness and starting to change the narrative with which you talk to yourself is essential. So I wanted to take a little bit of a different spin on this Halloween episode this year. And as we're kind of coming into the thick of Halloween season, [00:09:00] I hate that people call it spooky season and spell it S Z N, I just like cannot get behind that.
It's just fucking Halloween. That's it. It's not spooky season. It's just Halloween. Um, to notice the narrative that you have, what are the stories that you're telling yourself? And those stories are based on your lived experiences. But it also doesn't mean that the stories and the places where your brain is filling in the gaps is always true.
So, instead of saying to yourself, I can't have any Halloween comedy. Halloween candy around. I'm terrified because I'm out of control. What if you respond to that thought? We can't change the thought. We can change how we respond. So what if you respond by saying, I'm out of control. I just haven't learned the skills yet.
That is a much kinder way to speak to yourself. That's a much kinder way to walk into these situations so that you have some understanding of what's going on. It starts to dial down the guilt and the shame because guilt and shame are not the same. Right? Shame is when you really identify as being a [00:10:00] person who's out of control, right?
Where as guilt is like, Oh shit, like I screwed up. I shouldn't have done that. It's more about the behavior itself. Whereas shame is around like how you identify as a person and both things can be true around food and notice what comes up and then say, okay, well what kind of skill can I practice right now?
Right? Can I really commit to not having Halloween candy unless it's after a meal? Can I commit to Halloween candy only if I'm sitting at the kitchen table? Okay. Can I commit only to having the Halloween candy that I really love, right? The couple of things that I truly love versus grabbing for whatever's there because it's there and it's the novelty of having it around, right?
Maybe pick one of those things to try and see what happens. Maybe it goes really well, maybe it doesn't go really well. Either way, you have shown up, you have tried something, and you have started to respond to that story of saying, I'm out of control and responding and saying I'm out of control. I just don't have the skills yet.
And here I am trying to practice the skills here. I am showing up and doing something. And I [00:11:00] think that's really what I want to leave you with here is, yes, there's the practical skills, which I mentioned in which you're going to see people talk about, but then there's also the story, the language with which you are talking to yourself.
And how you are responding to the negative critical thoughts and the beliefs that you have about yourself. This is as good of a time as any to start to work on that. There's no perfect time, right? We're going from Halloween and then it's boom off and running into the holidays, right? So all of a sudden it's like the next two and a half months are like, for some people feel like, well, now I'm just screwed.
So it's either a fuck it or shit, I got to really buckle down. I can't eat any Halloween candy because the holidays are coming and I can't gain weight for the holidays. And if I eat Halloween candy, I'm going to gain weight, right? All these stories. So what if you respond again? I know I'm saying it for like the fourth time.
I'm not out of control. I'm not lacking willpower. I'm not unmotivated. I don't [00:12:00] have the skills yet. This is the skill I'm going to work on and I'm going to try and I'm going to show up and I'm going to do something, something that's actually productive and is going to. Um, move me along this path of change versus keeping me stuck in this all or nothing cycle.
Sometimes it feels like that all or nothing cycle feels more comforting, comforting because you've done it before. You know what it feels familiar and it helps you feel in control. It is a false sense of control is what I will tell you. It is a bandaid at best and it is temporary. Real change happens with learning skills and practicing them over time.
It does not happen with mastering them in a week, in a month. In three months. It takes time.
So that's what I have to say. That's it. Let's keep it short and sweet. Thank you for listening. Next week is episode 200. I'm not sure what I'm going to chat about. I have a couple ideas. Um, and then I have another really cool guest episode coming up probably the week after that. Um, [00:13:00] so thanks for being here.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for sharing the podcast with whomever you think would benefit from it or feel seen and heard or feel seen by it. I appreciate you and I'll be back soon.