The cool fall weather, Halloween and candy. This time of year all comes together quite nicely for anyone addicted to junk food. Not only can you justify eating bags of snickers bars by saying it’s part of the holiday, but now that summer is over you can hide the extra weight under a sweatshirt! Sounds like a good plan for anyone who isn’t struggling to stick with a healthy weight loss program!

It’s interesting that Americans have turned every single holiday into a junk food fest. Everything revolves around some type of food, and it gets worse each year. We all know that Halloween is all about the candy, but adding insult to injury is the fact that the cool weather leaves us wanting hot cider donuts, latte’s, hot chocolate and other fatty foods that we don’t normally eat on a regular basis.

If you are on a healthy weight loss program, you should not have to avoid all of the fun things other people are eating to celebrate this fun time of year. Listed below are 5 tricks to keep you on track with your weight loss efforts without feeling you are missing out on the things you love about Autumn. You say you don’t believe you can lose weight and still eat candy? Well keep reading. You’re in for a treat!

Halloween Trick To Lose Weight #1: Green Tea
Most people don’t know it, but drinking one cup of green tea every morning speeds up your metabolism so you can literally cheat on your diet and get away with it. It comes in all kinds of flavors, and you can even make it taste like hot cider with cinnamon if you want. I have kept an ideal weight after losing 70 pounds 15 years ago, and one thing I do that most people don’t is drink green tea.

Green tea has so many vitamins and antioxidants that you will instantly feel the rush of natural energy, which is another benefit that will help you achieve a healthy weight loss. How do you feel after one of those expensive, fatty lattes from Starbucks? I don’t know about you, but after I drink about half of it, it feels like I’m drinking a liquid candy bar, and that is never good for anyone who is trying to lose weight. Save your money and make an intelligent switch to green tea.

Halloween Trick To Lose Weight #2: Moderation
So you decided to switch to green tea, good for you! Does that mean you can never enjoy a fatty latte or hot cider again? Absolutely not! The biggest misconception people have with healthy weight loss is they think they have to forever be on a diet of bland salads. When you are making healthy choices on a daily basis to stick to your healthy weight loss plan, you can fall off the wagon every once in a while and not even notice a difference.

I love to visit Vermont in the fall. The changing leaves are spectacular. One year I was staying at a bed and breakfast and the host offered every guest a breakfast of home-made pumpkin pancakes with Vermont maple syrup. One woman declined because she was on a diet. Excuse me, but this is a life worth living and enjoying. Allow yourself to splurge on occasion. It is not every day you are offered something like that. If you are eating healthy and staying active on a daily basis, one plate of pancakes will not harm you.

Halloween Trick To Lose Weight #3: Exercise
No, I’m not talking about signing up for a gym membership. I’m talking about getting outside and experiencing this special time of year. Don’t hire the children down the street to rake your leaves for you. Get out there and do it yourself. Go for walks through wooded parks with your friends and pets. Autumn is famous for outdoor walking activities like public tent markets and haunted tours.

Any extra exercise off a treadmill will accelerate your weight loss and allow you to splurge more often. Since you are drinking more green tea, you will have more energy to do these kinds of things. Just remember not to eat a dozen cider donuts every time you stop and walk through a fall festival. One or two every other day will not hurt, as long as you are not eating candy apples on your days off donuts!

Keep these three Halloween tricks in mind and you won’t have to sit around and watch everyone else enjoy the culinary treats of the Halloween season. It’s easy to justify that box of donuts by thinking you have all winter to get in shape, but what what happens after Halloween? Thanksgiving, Christmas, New years, Valentines Day, Easter, etc. That sweatshirt is not going to solve any problems come summer time next year. Trust me, that’s not a treat you want to indulge in.

Many people unfortunately choose not to participate in this fun holiday simply because of the somewhat strange, evil, and even unhealthy activities and traditions associated with this holiday. Truthfully, they have every right to think this way, because let’s be honest – Halloween is just weird! At the same time, like everything in life, we have a choice to be dictated by circumstance or to create it ourselves. In other words, we can choose to focus on the negative aspects of this holiday and thus not participate; or, we can simply choose to focus on the fact that this holiday also provides a wonderful opportunity to have some good clean fun, spend time with family and friends, take opportunities to serve others, and justify the excessive eating of candy and sugar. Why would anyone complain about that?

Below I have listed just 15 of the many ideas that individuals and families everywhere can implement to make this holiday fun, meaningful, and memorable:

1) Make October 1st ‘Pumpkin Carving’ day. Each family member gets their own pumpkin to carve (or decorate).

2) ‘Halloween Give’ – The day after Halloween, have your kids pick out a few candies and go give them to: kids at the hospital or orphanage, new kids in the neighborhood, children at a homeless shelter, etc.

3) ‘Phantom Halloween’ – Choose a local family who is in need and collect clothes, toys, books, and especially lots of candy – and leave it on their doorstep secretly with a note. Or just choose a friend or neighbor and leave a treat for them from the ‘phantom ghost.’

4) Dress up in a costume and act as a prop, or hide in dark clothes – and scare the older ‘trick or treaters’ as they come to your house.

5) ‘Donuts and Hot Chocolate’ – sit out on the porch every year and have donuts and hot chocolate as you pass out candy.

6) ‘Costume Party’ – Invite friends, family, or neighbors over and have a dress-up costume party.

7) Take a picture of the kids in their costume each year.

Each year, visit a local pumpkin patch, haunted house, or corn maze together as a family.

9) Just have fun! Dress up as you pass out candy, try to scare kids, or ask kids to do a ‘trick’ before getting a treat (and then when they place their bag down to do the ‘trick’ – take it and run inside).

10) Do a neighborhood ‘trunk or treat’ for the smaller children. Go to the local school, church, or parking lot and everyone will park their car in a circle and decorate their trunks. The smaller kids then walk around the circle of cars and collect candy.

11) Make some pumpkin pies or cookies (with orange frosting) and deliver them to neighbors, family, friends, or those in need.

12) Watch a scary movie or read a scary story together.

13) Take a drive as a family one night before Halloween to just look at houses that are decorated around town.

14) The day after Halloween, go as a family and spend an hour or two cleaning up smashed pumpkins from the streets in your neighborhood.

15) Family Game Night – after all the kids come back from ‘trick or treating,’ just spend time together as a family playing games, watching a scary movie, and just having fun eating candy and being together.

As is obvious, the fun of Halloween is actually not in the ‘trick-or-treating’, the candy, or the scary costumes and parties; Halloween is fun and is meaningful because we spend time with friends, neighbors, and family. And although the media, movies, and even businesses focus on the shock value (evil) aspects of Halloween – ironically this holiday can actually become extremely meaningful if we take the opportunity to serve others, have clean and wholesome fun, and most importantly – spend time with family.