How to Avoid Halloween Candy

It’s that time of year again when you find yourself with so many opportunities to teach your kids about sharing as you sample the Halloween candy that they’ve collected and take that last fun size Snickers for yourself. Like many of you, I try not to overdo it with the Halloween candy. I mean I rationalize it away by saying that I’m a runner and I need the energy or carbs and that I’ll just run an extra mile or two tomorrow to make up for that fistful of Candy Corn, but the truth is I rarely run an extra anything. So, in order to maintain my finely tuned runner’s body (finely tuned like a kazoo) I find the best policy is to try to avoid the Halloween candy. Here are some of the best candy avoidance techniques that I’ve come up with:

Aversion Therapy
Every time you eat a piece of candy have your spouse tell you you’re fat. Eventually you will learn to associate eating candy with being fat and your spouse’s disapproval. If this doesn’t work then have your spouse tell you you’re fat while smacking you upside your head.

Exposure Therapy
Go out right now and buy as much candy as you can. Consume it all at once. Repeat until you become nauseated by the candy and the undulating waves of sugar highs and crashes. If you’re not getting sick, you’re not eating enough candy. I suppose it would be more accurately termed Over-Exposure Therapy.

Fat Disgusting Picture Therapy
Just look at this fat disgusting picture. If you still feel like eating anything then there’s no helping you.

Bacon Therapy
Eat bacon instead of candy. Bacon tastes good, but it’s kind of salty and it doesn’t go well with candy. Also, you probably don’t want to ruin that delicious bacon taste that you have in your mouth now by eating candy. I’m not sure that this is really a healthier option than candy but this isn’t a healthy eating list, it’s a candy avoidance list and the bacon thing will work. Trust me.

Beer Therapy
Beer does not taste good with candy. I cannot enjoy a beer and simultaneously be eating candy. ‘But Ian,’ you say ‘what about when I’m done with the beer? Won’t I be tempted to eat candy when I stop drinking beer?’ Solution: Don’t stop drinking beer.

Sex Therapy
Make sweet, sweet love to your spouse. I don’t know why this would help you not eat any candy, but mmmm boy, it sure does sound like fun doesn’t it? Plus now that it’s officially part of this candy avoidance list you have one more tool at your disposal to help you plead your case. Not that you need any help since you are probably already using my handy pick-up lines.*

Germaphobe Therapy
Pretend the candy is covered in swine flu, which it probably is since it has been sitting in that bowl and all those kids have been reaching their grubby little hands in there, snot nosed little Petri dishes that they are. Candy corn is a breeding ground for viruses and bacteria.

Punishment Therapy
Think of ways to punish yourself for eating any Halloween candy, because I understand that this kind of obsessive, self-destructive behavior is a healthy way to think about food. If you can get to a point where you start hating yourself for eating candy you’re well on your way to a candy-free Halloween and probably an eating disorder too. Hey, it’s not so bad. At least you’ll be skinny and happy OK, so maybe just skinny.

That’s it, that’s all the suggestions I have. Best of luck giving yourself a candyectomy this Halloween season and remember, if you must eat Halloween candy, eat it while you run. Who needs sport beans and gels when you can chow down on candy corn and pop rocks.

*If you are using those pick-up lines you really do need help, but not the kind that you'll find here, professional help.

Fast Food

It is a rare occasion that I see the inside of a fast food restaurant, and not because I prefer the drive through. Nevertheless on Wednesday night my wife and I found ourselves with only minutes to spare before the start of the movie we were going to see and we popped in to one such establishment. I don’t want to name the restaurant for fear of a lawsuit but let’s just say that it rhymes with Pentucky Lied Stickin’ and generally just goes by its initials. So we walked into this PLS and a quick glance around at the size and shape of the patrons confirmed my suspicions: I was better than all these people. You see, when I go into a fast food joint I like to look down my nose at everyone else in there because I eat healthier than these people do, I’m in better shape than these people are and I’m a runner. As fellow runners you have my permission to feel like you are better than the peasants that regularly frequent these locales and to let it be known that they are beneath you.

As we stepped up to the register and began to order, the portly woman who was waiting for her food rudely interrupted, “Excuse me! Are those fries fresh?”
“I’m sorry Ma’am?” replied the incredulous teen behind the counter, eyeing her suspiciously for sneaking the word ‘fresh’ into a PLS.
“Those fries,” she said waving a plump finger in their direction, “they look like they’ve been sitting there for a while.”
“Ohhhhhh, no. No the lamp keeps ‘em hot,” replied the teen before throwing a casual “Hey make sure those fries are hot,” over his shoulder to the “chef” in the back. I’m guessing that they probably made sure that this lady’s fries were hot by hocking a loogie onto them, or maybe worse.

What was amusing to me was that the word ‘fresh’ obviously wasn’t even in this kid’s vocabulary, or if it was it was filed under hot or toasty, but I don’t blame the kid. The word ‘fresh’ is not something that management had taught him, it’s not a word you should be associating with a fast food joint. ‘Fresh’ is a punchline that the ad execs throw around in their meetings, ‘fresh’ is the inside joke that upper management laughs about when they see it slathered all over their newest marketing campaign. If you really want fresh, you don’t go to a place that has heat lamps.

While we were waiting for our food Candis turned and whispered “you want me tell them to make sure it’s fresh?”
“No,” I laughed, “just make sure they don’t give us that lady’s fries.”

We quickly ate our greasy, unfresh chicken and left to go see the movie Get Smart because unlike some people, I haven’t surrendered my huevos to my wife just yet, at least not when it comes to movie choices.

My Kryptonite

I attended a Holiday Party yesterday afternoon that was thrown for my department by another group in the company. We send a lot of business their way and they always have an afternoon Holiday Party for us in December. It was an opportunity for me to showcase my iron willpower and forgo all the calorie rich foods on display, a time to amaze my coworkers with my tenacious pursuit of healthy eating. There was a token platter of fruit and some bottled water at one end of the spread, it was easy to spot because there was no one circling that end of the table. I would be the Spartan among them.

I grabbed a plate of fruit and a bottle of water, but as I was turning to go mingle I caught a glimpse of the most wonderful looking sugar cookies that you’ve ever seen. You know the kind, with icing on top that is made by mixing powdered sugar, water and heaven. To be honest I don’t even like the cookies that much but it’s apparently impolite to just lick the icing off and toss the cookies, which you undoubtedly do if you only eat the icing. A rainbow of colors burst forth from the little holiday themed shapes of paradise and a beam of sunlight shone down from above to the accompaniment of an angelic chorus of “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

I didn’t even hesitate. I grabbed one and placed it next to the fruit on my plate. I ate it quickly and then licked the crumbs from the plate so that I could regain the appearance that I was only having fruit. It was delicious. DE - LICIOUS! I walked to the trash can, disposed of the fruit and went back for another couple of cookies. Pretty soon the water bottle had been discarded too in favor of a pumpkin spice latte from the barista, because that goes much better with cookies anyway.

My conversations with coworkers grew shorter and shorter, my eyes nervously flitting over to the plate of cookies. Would it be inappropriate to excuse myself from the conversation to go get more cookies? How can I end this conversation and break away? For the love of all things holy will you please stop talking and let me go grab MORE COOKIES!

I lost count of how many cookies I’d eaten somewhere after 7 but my consumption was definitely north of that mark. I didn’t eat anything else because nothing else would have been able to compare. As I was about to head back to my office I grabbed a napkin and placed a couple of extra cookies in it ‘for later’. Except as soon as I got back into my office I closed the door and inhaled both of those too, and you know what? I don’t even feel the least bit guilty. In fact, I wish that I had brought even more cookies back with me so that I could have eaten them all. It is a miracle, a Christmas Miracle that I didn't go back for more cookies later. So I don't know how many cookies I ate yesterday, and I like it better that way. It was a good day!

I was like Cookie Monster, but not the new version of Cookie Monster that claims that cookies are a sometimes food and eats them in moderation after a well balanced meal. No, I remember a Cookie Monster that used to eat as many cookies as he could and then eat the plate too. Yeah, that was me yesterday.

Sabotaged!

My race preparation has been sabotaged. Who would do such a thing you might ask? An angry reader out for revenge? A fellow competitor looking to gain an edge? No, it was my wife! I got home last night and this was the scene that I walked in to:


Not just a bag of Halloween candy, but an ALREADY OPENED bag of Halloween candy. I’m days away from my half marathon, I’ve been tapering my running and I’m trying to equally taper my eating so as not to gain weight, but alas temptation has been thrust in my face.

“Just don’t eat any until after Sunday,” was my wife’s suggestion, and under normal circumstances that would be the solution. Believe it or not I do have a modicum of will power and self-restraint, but the bag contains some of the best candy ever invented: The Vanilla Tootsie Roll. If you’ve never had a Vanilla Tootsie Roll then you haven’t lived. I’m no fortune teller, but I suspect that when I finally kick the bucket and my ticket gets punched it will be the first time the coroner has ever written OD: Vanilla Tootsie Rolls in the cause of death entry blank. And while the mortician will eventually be able to wipe the gooey-Vanilla-Tootsie-Roll-drool from my face he will not be able to get rid of the goofy smile. No, I’ll still be smiling six months after I’m dead.

In fact, the reason that my blog is called Half-Fast and not just ‘Fast’ is because of Vanilla Tootsie Rolls. Well, that and because ‘Fast’ would be a pretty lame name for a blog, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Vanilla Tootsie Rolls are the reason that I will never win a race, I’m convinced of it.

I leave you with this:


Vanilla Tootsie Rolls - they make me want to dance and shake my money maker too.

The Baconator

I don't often give nutritional advice on this site but I'm going to today. Don't eat the Baconator. That's it. Pretty simple huh? Now I know that you're probably thinking what could possibly be wrong with two hamburger patties, cheese slices, cheese sauce, mayonnaise, and 6 (count 'em 6) slices of bacon? And the answer is nothing at all, providing you spread that out over 4 meals and 3 days, but I don't think that's quite what Wendy's had in mind. On the other hand bacon sure is tasty so let's say you head in to Wendy's to "do what tastes right" and you order the Baconator. Why yes, I will make that a combo meal. No, I don't want to Biggie size the fries, I'm trying to control my portions! I'd better do a diet coke too. Here's the stats on your lunch: 1250 calories, 71g total fat, 175mg cholesterol, 88g carbs and 3 years... that's 3 years off your life. Whew! Good thing you went with the DIET coke!

Boy was that good, but your sweet tooth is kicking in and you could really use something chocolatey, something like the Brownie Earthquake from Dairy Queen. So you head over to DQ because you want to "DQ something different" and you figure you'll reward yourself for being so good and getting a diet drink with your lunch. Besides, you've already screwed today's calorie count straight to hell so why not? At 740 calories, 28g total fat, 60mg cholesterol and a whopping 149g carbs it can't hurt right? Right? In one meal you're now pushing 2000 calories and almost 100g total fat! You could drink bottled water for the rest of the week and you'd still gain weight. Do you realize that you would have to run for over 18 miles to burn off the calories from that one meal? (Based on an estimate of burning 110 calories/mile). Do you also realize that just by looking at the picture you've probably ingested 200 calories?

Is it any wonder that America continues to get fatter and fatter by the day? It's making me feel fat just to sit and write about this, on the upside I have plenty of motivation to go workout tonight.

Baconator is a registered trademark of Wendy's and is not being used here with their express written permission, which means that by the time you finish reading this Wendy's will likely own my house and my firstborn son.

The Marriott Wants Me Dead

OK, so maybe the title of this post is a little too drama queen or melodramatic, but it can't be far off. I'm out of town on business over the next few days which means I'm not just getting paid to write this blog and surf the ebays but now I also get to expense my meals. Ahhh, corporate America.

I'm staying at the Marriott and they have this wonderful breakfast menu that you fill out and hang outside your door at night. The next morning, your breakfast is brought to you by an over-eager employee who stands around and uncomfortably waits for a tip despite the fact that the menu clearly says that a 20% gratuity will be automatically added to any room service orders. That’s right Johnny-No-Tip, I read the fine print.

As a runner who has been told he has borderline high cholesterol I was pleased see the "Fit" section on the menu where I can order healthy food. Number one item on the list: Steak and eggs with a mushroom bacon hash. I kid you not, you can click the image above to read it for yourself. Let me say that again, steak, eggs and bacon. I can actually feel my arteries tightening up. In what world is that a healthy breakfast? Is this what America has come to? Hotels claiming that steak, eggs and bacon is a 'healthy' breakfast, employees blogging at work? I understand that they were pandering to the low carb diet fad with this menu item, but my doctor just sat bolt upright in bed and started planning a new addition to his home that will be made possible by my triple bypass surgery.

So what did I order? Hey, far be it from me to tell the Marriott what is and isn't healthy. Personal note to Dr. Abrams if you're reading this, I’m free on March 14th 2008 if you want to go ahead and schedule my surgery, mornings work best for me.

Happiness is a Waffle Sandwich

On my Sunday morning run I jogged past this quaint little hole-in-the-wall ice cream parlor called Lighthouse Ice Cream. “Neat” I thought (because when I talk to myself I like to use expressions that haven't been cool since the 50s), “I’ll have to check that out.” So later that night I went back to the Lighthouse Ice Cream parlor and made a mistake that is sure to cost me 10 – 15lbs and a good 4 minutes in my next 10K.

My mistake: I ordered the Hot Waffle Ice Cream sandwich, and it was everything that I hoped it could be. Now I’d never even heard of a Hot Waffle Ice Cream sandwich prior to this, but I thought to myself “shucks, that sounds like it might be good.” Good doesn’t even begin to describe it. Since Sunday I’ve already been back there to eat it again and I’m planning on going back at least 2 more times before we leave. In short I’m going to have to put in some serious miles during this vacation in order to stay in shape.

It was at least four times as good as it sounds like it should be, and surprisingly only 23% as messy as it sounds like it should be. They should try giving those things to crack addicts to get them off the smack because I read somewhere that drug rehab is only 38% effective, but Hot Waffle Ice Cream sandwiches are over 98% effective according to my research.

As I re-read this blog entry for editing purposes (yes, believe it or not I do re-read and edit before posting) I started to think “well golly gee wilikers, what does this have to do with running?” Nutrition related? That’s pushing it. I found it during a run? A little weak. Motivation to run more? Perhaps, but essentially it come down to this: It’s my blog and this is what I’m posting today!