Halloween Binges

I still love Halloween. I love the crisp, cool air, and the changing leaves that dress up the day. I love the sounds of the children as they run door to door eager to fill their sacks with more and more goodies. I love seeing the princesses, goblins, ghosts and zombies all puffed up with pride for their costumes. Halloween heralds the coming holiday season and never ceases to evoke a sense of heightened excitement for the days ahead.

It is somewhat of a family tradition that we meet the evening with a pot of Chili steeping on the stove and bags of candy ready in the foyer. This year was no different. We had purchased two massive bags of candy at Target the night before and in an effort to keep with tradition, decided to attempt our first low-salt batch of Chili sans the noodles and rice that we previously favored with it. We purchased No Salt Added Kidney Beans and No Salt Added Canned Tomatoes for the base. We stuck with hamburger meat in lieu of ground turkey, since we knew we would probably need the added flavor. We also threw in some low salt black-eyed peas, beer, tomato sauce, onion, fresh garlic, balsamic vinegar, chili powder, oregano, cinnamon, nutmeg, low fat/low salt Parmesan cheese and Ms Dash's table blend. Truth be told, the ingredients continued to grow as we kept taste testing and realized that the low salt content was putting a serious crimp in our usually zesty Chili.

The good news was that two hours later mixed with a little shredded grated cheese and sour cream, we had a passable chili. Lesson learned, however, it may be a better idea to google an actual low salt recipe for chili the next time versus trying to wing it. Bad news was it didn't quite hit the same spot that our tradition Chili Mac seemed to fill. Even worse, for the first time, our Trick-or-Treater traffic was on slow boil. What did this mean? Huge candy bowl next to the front door that wasn't in danger of being emptied anytime soon by the revelers, but was a fair target for a skinny girl who hadn't managed to quell her cravings that evenings. I confess.....I went on a Halloween candy binge. I might not have felt so bad about it, but we had decided to skip our usual Monday evening work-out. We had spent the previous weekend in New Orleans for a wedding, and needless to say, between walking the French quarter and dancing the night away at the reception, we had decided we deserved a night off to rest our aching calves.

I tried to ease my guilt by reminding myself of a favorite saying of one of my fit friends, "Everything counts!" This is the idea that our physical fitness level is affected by every physical activity we do, not just the activities that target exercising. Walking to the basement to ask a question instead of calling from upstairs, parking at the back of the parking lot to add a few more steps to our daily routine, cleaning, toting laundry, waxing cars, etc.... I believe that as well, which is why I adopted short daily exercise breaks at the office. So as I walked back and forth to the candy bowl, I told myself "Everything counts!" I recognized this was a stretch, but I still only allowed myself one piece of candy a trip. I won't go in to how many trips I made.

Today I am post Halloween binge hangover. The candy bowl has been moved to my daughter's room and lunch consisted of chicken and vegetables. The gym is calling my name. It is a new day, and today I will do better than yesterday.