The Trick to Eating
Halloween Treats

First of all, I'd like to profusely apologize for accidentally sending last month's newsletter out to you again this week. Following is the actual October newsletter I meant to send. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I boo boo-ed. So very sorry. :)

Halloween is just around the corner and you know what that means!?! Treats, treats, and more treats! Right? Go ahead, admit it! Who isn't guilty of dipping into their kid's Halloween bounty when they aren't looking, leaving you feeling bloated and guilty? Even if you don't have kids, the hyped-up marketing ploys for the seasonal junk fest coupled with the sinful delights that friends and fellow workers bring into the workplace can be enough to throw even the strongest willpower over the edge. Of course the problem is that the extra useless calories from those goodies can truly be scarier than Jason, Freddy, or the grossest zombie imaginable.

Like me, are you one of those people who might as well apply the stuff right to your belly, hips, or derriere? If so you are in luck, because this month's newsletter is about how to counter the treats with the tricks that can get you through Halloween, or any other holiday for that matter, without gaining an ounce.

Everybody knows that weight loss or weight maintenance is about calories in and calories out, right? So this leaves you with a couple of choices. Hey, I didn't say it would be easy. I just said I can help.

Here's the unsugar-coated truth of the matter: If you are going to eat extra calories, you will have to work them off. Sure, you can try substituting healthier snacks by baking your own and replacing unhealthy ingredients with healthier ones when you can. But the painful truth is either way, if you increase your calories regardless of how healthy or unhealthy they are, you will have to increase your exercise in order to maintain or lose weight.

Here's the sciency breakdown that I swiped from Caloriesperhour.com. (This is an awesome site so be sure and bookmark them.) They spell it out much better than I could have so why reinvent the wheel, right?

Quoting directly from them, "A pound of body fat equates to approximately 3500 calories. So if you have a calorie deficit of 500 calories (meaning that you burn 500 calories more than you eat each day) you would lose approximately one pound per week:

500 x 7 = 3,500

It's easy to see that a calorie deficit of 1000 calories would mean that you'd lose approximately two pounds per week. And that's a good number to remember, because two pounds a week is commonly accepted as the maximum rate of weight loss that is healthy."

Now, you can do this by literally cutting those calories (calories in), or you can create the deficit with added activity (calories out). Your choice, but I think a combo of the two works best. However, we are talking about how to combat extra treats due to the holiday at hand.

Here's what you need to do: If you're going to eat the treat, I suggest adding a day of cardio to your normal weekly regimen and maybe adding an extra 10-15 minutes to your daily routine until you are out of the candy-coated haunted woods and back to your normal, healthy daily nutrition plan. You do have a normal healthy daily nutrition plan…right? Of course you do!!!

Now, for an extra kick in the toosh, try my lower body strength training workout! Do 2-3 sets of each exercise in the video at anywhere from 10-12 or 12-15 reps each. Just be sure to choose a weight and rep range that makes the last two reps feel super-challenging yet still doable in good form.

Remember, you can’t spot reduce. So, get your nutrition under control, do your cardio to burn your fat from everywhere on your body, and then strength train every major muscle group as I’ve always recommended.