105. A Less Sweet Trick or Treat

Halloween doesn’t have to mean a week-long sugar hangover. In this fun and practical episode, Dr. Stacy shares real-life strategies for keeping Halloween magical—without letting candy take over your house (or your appetite).

You’ll learn:

🍭 Smart swaps for what to hand out that kids actually love (and won’t get your house toilet-papered)

🎒 Creative ways to handle the post–trick-or-treat candy avalanche

💰 How to make candy “buy-backs,” trades, and swaps fun instead of restrictive

🧠 A simple “Pause + Portion” method for grown-ups who find themselves raiding the candy stash

🥚 The ultimate November 1st reset plan—so everyone in the house bounces back fast

This episode is part parenting hacks, part mindset reset—and 100% doable. Because Halloween should be about the memories, not the sugar crash.

✨ Listen now to learn how to celebrate, enjoy, and still stay on track—no guilt required.

Free 2-Pound Plan Call!
Want to jump start your weight loss? Schedule a free call where Dr. Stacy Heimburger will work with you to create a personalized plan to lose 2 pounds in one week, factoring in your unique circumstances, challenges, and aspirations. Schedule now! www.sugarfreemd.com/2pound

This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to Weight Loss Made Simple. I’m Dr. Stacy. It is our Halloween episode, so I got my hat out and I’m excited. We love Halloween here, but let’s be honest—it can be one of the trickiest days of the year, especially if we are trying to stay on point with our health goals. And especially if you’re someone who’s really trying not to eat a lot of sugar, because it feels like Halloween is all sugar, all the time.

Quick aside—confession about no-buy 2025. Definitely bought Halloween costumes and Halloween decorations. And I also bought a Mahjong set. Now, I shopped for a long time to not spend a lot of money, but it is something we are playing in the neighborhood and it is super fun. My grandma used to have a set somewhere in the family—it is not with me. I looked for her set for a long time first, couldn’t find it, so I did end up buying one so that I can play Mahjong with the ladies.

So those are my purchases of Q3, I guess. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll try to do a full wrap-up at the end of the year.

Now, back to Halloween. I don’t know if this sounds familiar to you, but usually what ends up happening is you’re going out with the kids, getting Halloween candy—or maybe you don’t have to trick-or-treat with them anymore, which, congratulations to you, I’m not quite there yet—but they dump out these buckets or bags in the middle of the floor or on the table, and there’s all this candy.

Then there’s the “parent tax,” right? We take our little Reese’s cup or Kit Kat or whatever, and that’s gone off the top. Then we have this sugar overload that night, so it’s almost impossible to put them to sleep. And then it’s awful for the next few days because they’re just eating candy, eating candy, eating candy. Unless your child is the one-in-a-million, my kids’ behavior is not as good when they’re eating a ton of candy—especially because that’s what they want for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They don’t even want real food in the days after Halloween.

So what I thought I would talk about is kind of the before, during, and after of Halloween—the whole process. What can we do ahead of time? What can we do that day or the next morning? And what can we do to kind of reset the whole house? Not just us, but maybe the whole house.

Get ready—this is going to be a high, tactical-tip-filled episode for you.

Part One: What Can We Do Ahead of Time?

What are some smarter alternatives—some swaps we can make—so that maybe we’re not part of the problem, but we’re also not the house that gets toilet-papered for giving out raisins?

Now, I have to tell you—our dentist lives in our neighborhood, the kids’ dentist—and he gives out toothbrushes. And they love it. So if you want to be the house that gives out toothbrushes, I’m telling you, my children love it. They love going to Dr. Brazill’s house and getting their toothbrush.

But if you don’t want to be that house, I have some other alternatives for you that are not “all in or get toilet papered.” We were the house that gave out the full-size candy bars once—if you want to be that house, that’s fine too. There is no judgment in this episode. I just want to give you some alternatives if you want to be different this year.

We can do things like novelties, because I promise you, kids like novelty as much as they like candy. What about glow sticks or glow bracelets? I personally put these on my kids while they’re trick-or-treating. It’s very dark in our neighborhood, so I give them all the glow stuff before they go out—but I would love if they got that from a house, and they would love it too.

Here’s a little fun aside: sometimes we’ll put glow sticks in the bathtub with bubbles, turn out all the lights, and they’re like at a little kid rave. They think it’s amazing. So glow sticks or glow bracelets—amazing alternative.

Stickers, stamps, temporary tattoos—my kids love tattoos. I don’t know if your kids love tattoos, but over the summer I got them giant, full-arm sleeve tattoos. They were the hit of the neighborhood. Super fun, everyone loves them, great giveaway.

You could do pencils, erasers, crayons. My kids love these and actually use them. Mini Play-Doh, bubbles, bouncy balls—any little trinket or treasure like that. You can raid the dollar store and see what you can find.

If you want to plan ahead next year, now that we can order from all of these overseas bulk places, you can get tons of these things for not very expensive. Things like spider rings and vampire teeth—my kids love vampire teeth; I don’t know why—they just do.

All of these things are classic little trinkets. So if you think novelty trinket instead of candy, anything that fits in that category works great.

This year I did a giveaway and found pumpkin squeeze balls. When you squeeze them, a little ghost pops out—they love them! That’s what they’ll be giving out at school. I bought them in bulk for a conference, and they were so excited I had to take them away because they were squeezing them nonstop and breaking them.

If we still want to do food but keep it lower sugar, there’s tons of stuff: pretzel bags, popcorn—Skinny Pop makes Halloween packs—veggie straws shaped like ghosts, sugar-free gum, even clementines with jack-o’-lantern faces. Kids really love those too.

There’s even a house in my neighborhood that gives out money—actual one-dollar bills. You can give out dollars or change—my kids love change! So you can go sugar-less, less sugar, or no sugar, do novelties, or even give out money. You can be the cool house on the block without handing out all sugar.

Part Two: The Candy Avalanche

Let’s say we’ve made it through trick-or-treating, and now we’re home with the candy avalanche. What do we do?

Even if you didn’t give out candy, they’re going to bring home tons of it, because we’re not changing the whole world by next week. So, what do we do with it all?

At my house, every year I buy their candy from them. They dump everything out, trade with each other first—one likes chocolate, one doesn’t—and then I come in with dollar bills and pay them for their candy. Anything they don’t love or don’t really want, I buy from them.

They happily sell it to me because they love money—that’s why they love going to the house that gives out dollars. Last year, that house actually gave out $2 bills. They’re really trying to show everyone up, but that’s fine—my kids loved it.

So I buy their candy for actual money. They’re trading for money. I love this because it sets up good systems: it empowers them to make a choice, it gets the sugar out of the house, and it doesn’t take away the fun. It’s not a punishment—they get money instead. Then they can pick something they want to buy, so it adds delayed gratification.

If you don’t want to pay for candy, you don’t have to. There are plenty of other options:

• Prizes or toy swaps—maybe we use leftover squeeze balls as trades.
• Activity coupons—“Dad does the dishes,” “Breakfast for dinner,” little experience rewards.
• Lego or puzzle piece trades—each candy turned in earns one piece until the set is complete.
• A point system—siblings can even pool their points for a family outing, like the zoo.
• The “Switch Witch”—leave candy out that night and the Switch Witch replaces it with a toy or book by morning.

Kids don’t feel punished with these systems—it’s not about taking away. It’s about choice. They actually get something, and it teaches them empowerment and self-control.

Part Three: What Do We Do With the Leftovers?

Let’s say we’ve bought all this candy back—now what do we do with it?

Start with pause and portion. Before you grab candy, pause. Ask yourself, “What do I really want to do with this?” If it’s your favorite candy, maybe save a couple of pieces and put them in the freezer to enjoy one at a time. If you do that, great—eat it mindfully. No one’s bothering you, no distractions—just enjoy it.

Then, give away what’s left. Take it to work, donate it—there are organizations that send candy to troops or shelters. If you want, email me and I’ll look up where you can send it. The point is: get as much of it out of sight as possible.

And here’s your permission slip—it’s okay to just throw it away. Yes, it’s “wasting,” but nobody needs this stuff. It’s not good for anyone. So if you want to toss it, I fully support that. If you need to, write it on a prescription pad: “Dr. Stacy said I can throw out all that candy.”

November 1st Reset Plan

I think this goes for everyone in the house—kids included. Plan a protein-packed breakfast the morning after Halloween.

If I have my days right, Halloween is actually on a Friday this year. So Saturday morning—make breakfast! Something to stabilize blood sugar for everyone. Then forget about it. Whatever happened on Halloween night—let it go, forgive and move forward.

So: protein breakfast, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate, and get a little movement in. Go for a walk, ride bikes, walk the dog. Just do something to shake it off. One reset meal, one walk, one glass of water—and you’re right back on track.

Wrap-Up

Halloween doesn’t have to mean a week-long or month-long sugar crash. We have options.

We can do things ahead of time—give out something fun that isn’t candy. We can make a game of what comes in, to limit how much sticks around. And then afterward, get it out of sight and plan a healthy reset for November 1st.

Be a little imaginative. The buy-back system works great—my kids love it. We haven’t done a family walk on November 1st before, but we’ll try that this year.

This is going to be really fun, it’s going to work out great, and it’s such an easy, doable plan for Halloween. It’s not about saying “I can’t have anything.” It’s about being mindful ahead of time, making a plan, and following through—the things I love to teach all the time.

Hope that was helpful! I’ll see you next week. Bye!