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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: Clever Plans and Secret Tricks




Happy Halloween!

I'm going to give my shoes one more chance to redeem themselves, and hopefully burn a few calories before the serious candy eating starts.

I swear I'm going running in a little while, as soon as the sun melts the frost on my car. Frosty air hurts my lungs when I breathe. My doctor says I have the beginning stages of asthma, but I don't believe her. Except, sometimes when I can't breathe, I think maybe she is smart after all. Her name is Frost, so I always think of her on frosty mornings when my lungs hurt. She's so smart, she has a name that reminds me to think of her and take care of my lungs. That's good marketing, I think.

Here's my big news: I haven't had a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in three days. I'd like to think it's sheer willpower on my part. But it's not. I ate up the last of the secret stash on Saturday, and didn't buy any more. Yet.

This is my first secret trick to not over doing it on the Halloween Candy: don't buy it. Easy to say, not easy to do. When you walk into Safeway, it's very tricky to not be lured into the powerful pull of the Reese's. They're everywhere, and they're orange (my favorite color.)

Consequently, I haven't been to the grocery store in a while. Which means we've been eating the pantry stash of canned soup, beans, cheese and crackers, and working our way through the Costco sized bag of carrots every night for dinner. Carrots are orange, too, after all.

I'm trying to trick myself about carrots. It's not working.

My second secret trick for not eating too much candy: buy mixed bags of Tootsie Roll products. I don't like them. A Tootsie Roll is like pretend chocolate. It's brown wax with sugar, I think. And the little flavored Tootsie Rolls, in "vanilla" and "maple?" Forget it. Not even worth the calories. Plus the last thing I need is one of those icky, sticky candies pulling a gold crown off one of my back teeth.

I'm not saying I haven't eaten a Tootsie Roll in the past week. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all. I was searching through all the secret Reese's hiding places last night, hoping one had fallen out of the secret bag and landed somewhere secret. But alas, I found all the hidden Reese's last week...not hard, since I was the one who hid them.

One bite of Tootsie Roll, when you really want a Reese's, is one bite too many. I've actually thrown away a half eaten mini Tootsie Roll. I think this means I'm not a true candy addict. It's like pouring really bad, cheap red wine down the sink after one sip. Or half a glass, maybe. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it reminds me that I'm not an alcoholic after all, and I feel righteous.

I don't buy Reese's, or any other candy, usually. I'm not a real candy bar type. I'm more of a Sparrow Bakery chocolate croissant type, or a big bar of organic, 60% dark chocolate on day number 21 of each month type. I tend to make my chocolate calories count all the way. In a snobbish, high-end way.

That's why Halloween is so special, I think. All of the sudden, Safeway (and America) make buying and eating cheap candy not only okay, but somehow normal. Like we don't really have a choice. We have to. It's Halloween. And no one looks at you funny in the check-out line. They're all buying it too.

We pretend it's for the trick or treaters, but we start buying it in mid-September, and we still need to go out and get more at 3:00 p.m. on Halloween, because the candy is gone before the little youngsters even have their costumes on.

Man oh man, I hope Safeway still has some Reese's left for me today, because I'm giving all the Tootsie Rolls to the kids.

2 comments:

Jen said...

Save some of the orange-flavored tootsie rolls for me, please! They are my favorites...

deb s said...

Watch out for the Reeses cups with caramel. They are deadly good. I don't normally like Reeses peanut butter cups and ate one yesterday out of desperation. Fortunately, there was only one in the house. (not that I looked only everywhere!)