To be honest, Halloween has become the official start of the holiday season. The candy and treats enter our homes and offices and seem to stay until January 1. This can make these few months challenging to maintain our weight. Food can be a part of the fun. For a healthier start to the holidays, let’s kick off the spook-tacular season with these 3 tips:

1. Fuel up: Before a Halloween party or trick or treating, serve yourself and your family a monster size portion (in other words: a cup or 2) of fruits and/or vegetables. Include some lean protein and maybe a whole grain to round out a nutritious meal.
2. Variety: Treats need not only come in the candy variety. Consider sweets and treats that have nutritional value such as packs of raisins, whole grain pretzels, or 100% fruit juice.
3. Share: If you want to treat the office, share a fruit based dessert, cut up veggies and arrange in fun shapes. We used 2 yellow peppers (orange pepper would work, too!), cut in half and made a pumpkin patch. We added hummus as the stem and celery on the bottom as if growing around grass. Simple + fun! Or make a Halloween-colored dried fruit and nut trail mix. Dried apricots, raisins and dried bananas work perfectly.

Get in the spirit of this fun holiday – put on a costume and go for walk or dance in a zumba class!

Tags: Blog, fall, halloween, Nutrition, nutrition tips