WHAT TO DO WITH ALL OF MY HALLOWEEN CANDY?!?!?

These tips were given last year in our “keepin it real” post where I ask questions via facebook and twitter and real moms give their best tips.  It was so good I thought I’d share the tips again.  Below you’ll find the top 5 answers, for more click here.

Victoria's Halloween Stash 2011

5.  “We keep all of it in a bin in the pantry and let them pick out one piece as a treat each day. They forget about it after a week or so, then we give it away.”  Matt S.

4.  “I buy it off my granddaughters and they get the money to spend on something they really like. I keep it and let them have a treat once in awhile. Like others mention they soon forget about it and when I offer up a treat they remember and smile over it. The rest gets dumped at the end.” Linda H

3.  “We should start a collection in our neighborhood and mail it to the troops! ”  Tamar V.

2.  The kids chose 5 pieces each, then we took the rest to a homeless shelter. Eye-opening for sure and they really appreciated what they had! Sarah S.

The number one Thing to Do with all of your Halloween Candy!!

1. “Sarah S. has the best idea I’ve ever heard. “The Switch Witch”. The kids get to pick out a certain number of candies to keep. Then, they hang their bags on their bedroom door, and the “Switch Witch” comes along and takes the candy and leaves them a toy (probably a toy they’ve wanted). She even took it a step further and the “Switch Witch” leaves them a note telling them she needs help with her job because she’s so busy and asks them to take it to a homeless shelter to share.”  Katie J.

Mya's 2011 Halloween Stash

Here are some of my ideas, I hope you like them…

We’ll be using some of our candy to make our Gingerbread house for Christmas!!

Moms like me who homeschool, or who are just into “out of the box” education will appreciate this.  CANDY EXPERIMENTS!!!  Yes, you read that right!  Use your left over candy to teach your kids some cool stuff about science!  Acid tests, sink or float, making life saver lights, oil tests and more!  Click here to try your own candy experiments!

If you LOVE to bake like me, you can use some of the leftover candy to make special treats.  Notice I said “special” treats.  Not all of the time.  Use your leftover candy to make “Better for you Candy Bar Cookies“! (the recipe is for 10 dozen, so make sure you click to reduce the # needed!)

Finally, if you don’t care about “wasting the candy”, by that I mean throwing it away.  You can ask your kids if you can “buy” their candy from them.  But, here’s the catch, the money won’t go to your kids, instead they get to donate the money to the charity of their choice!  Of course, you may need to guide them a little (if they are young).  You can first find out where their heart is.  Maybe they have a heart for kids with cancer, or people who don’t have food, or clean water and then go online together and  maybe give them an option of 2-3 charities that meet the need they chose.  I use Charity Navigator to find out how the charities are using their money, so I know they aren’t wasting the funds we give them.

I hope this list helped you out! If you liked these ideas, please share on fb and twitter.  There are MORE ideas of mine on this post, click here. If you have more cool ideas we didn’t mention, comment below!  Hope you had a Happy Halloween!!!

Annett Davis, Olympian & Founder of Fit Moms Fit Kids

P.S.  For a healthy eating plan to detox from Halloween, click here.

Today I pause to remember a great man, my father, Cleveland Buckner.  Five years ago today, he died of a heart attack.  It was the third he’d had in his lifetime.  I remember when I was younger and he had his first heart attack how nervous and scared I was.  Visiting him in the hospital with tubes coming out of here and there.  My dad was 6’9″  he hardly fit into a California King sized bed, let alone a hospital bed.  To be a young girl, seeing her big strong daddy, in a tiny bed, in a small room, hearing beeps, and nurses being buzzed was let’s just say, a lot for me to handle.  Unfortunately, I’d visit him another time in my lifetime in the same position before the 3rd one would finally take his life.

I pause to remember my dad today for several reasons.  If you don’t know, he was the reason I started Fit Moms Fit Kids Club in the first place.  He too was a professional athlete.  He was an all star player at Jackson State University (he was inducted into their hall of fame before he died), and he also played in the NBA.  Though he had been a pro athlete in his younger years, like so many of us, he began to neglect his health as he got older.  Years of coaching after teaching math all day, and having to make a long commute home afterwards took it’s toll.  As they say, you are what you eat, and he ate pastrami sandwiches and burgers from some of the greasiest places in town.  Stress and neglect of his body took its toll and high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and in his later years type 2 diabetes took residence.

As many of you know I am a professional athlete as well.  After my fathers death I was so bitter, and angry at him for not sticking to a healthy lifestyle.  All of the things that plagued him from heart disease, to gout in his knees were all preventable.  He had a choice, like we all do, to eat right and exercise.  I was upset because now he would not get to see his grandchildren grow up, and I wouldn’t have my daddy.

Well, as God often does he put a mirror in front of my face and told me to look into it.  What I saw was not pretty.  He showed me that I was living my life just like my father was in my off season.  I’d stop exercising and I’d eat whatever I wanted.  Every off season I’d gain 10 pounds.  The reality was, if I lived this way after I retired, that I would end up exactly like my dad.  I’d gain a ton of weight, end up with heart disease, possibly type 2 diabetes, and maybe I wouldn’t be there for my children either.  This was a hard pill to swallow.  I was living the life of the obese, and I was teaching my kids how to do it too!

Something had to change.  I had to change. I realized that I wasn’t going to be a pro athlete forever.  I wouldn’t just lose all the weight every year once I started working out and playing at my events during the season.  I realized that I had to make some serious changes and I did.  Fit Moms Fit Kids Club was created because I realized that I’m not perfect, and I know other moms aren’t either.  We need each other, we need support, we need encouragement, we need information, we need accountability, and we need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves.  That’s why we started this revolution to try to get 1 million moms to sign the pledge to commit to raising healthy families.

If you’d like to join me on my journey and gain support you can become our Google Friend on the right, a twitter follower, and you can subscribe to the blog to get helpful tips to help you on your journey.  Soon, hopefully today our facebook page will be reinstated. Someone took us down for the wrong reasons, and thankfully realized that that was wrong and asked today for our page to be reinstated.  It’s been down almost 4 weeks, very unfortunate.    So, look out again for our Fit Moms Fit Kids Club page on facebook.   I know some of you were wondering what happened.  We were trying to work it out over the weeks with the utmost intergrity on our side.   Anyhow, when you download the pledge on the right side bar you’ll get a free meal plan and workout plan to help you get started with your desired outcomes.

Today, I’m not angry at my father anymore.  I realize that he was just human.  A great man, but just like you and I, he made some poor health choices over the course of his life.  I thank him for teaching me so much in my life.  Some of you ladies may feel like you or your child’s weight issue is beyond changing.  Maybe you feel like you’ve eaten this way all your life, and you cannot possibly change now.  Let me tell you what my dad would have said.  He would have said, ‘NOW IT’S TIME TO GO TO WORK!” It doesn’t matter what you used to do, or what you did 5 minutes ago, NOW is the time.  You can change your choices.  And, as my husband always says “Change your Choices, change your life”.  You can do it.

Here's a hug and a kiss on the cheek, you can do it!

In the final years of my dad’s life he started to make positive changes in his heath and fitness.  He began walking to exercise, he started eating much better.  In fact, he was getting his diabetes under control.  He was on less medication than he had been on in years.  He was changing his choices.  His body started to slim down, he looked younger, more confident, and was feeling good too.  Unfortunately, it was too late for him, his body had taken a toll.  Don’t let that happen to you, don’t let your choices as a mom affect the health of your children in a negative way.  We have a responsibility moms to take care of ourselves so that we can be there for our kids.  And, to take care of our kids so that they can outlive us.  It is predicted that this current generation will not outlive ours.  It will be the first generation to not outlive their parents.  This prediction does not have to become a fact in our history books.  Let’s make better choices, let’s change our lives together.  Let’s start today.

Now, it’s time to go to work!

Annett Davis, Olympian & Founder of Fit Moms Fit Kids

P.S  I forgot to mention that my dad taught me a ton of other wonderful things.  He encouraged me to get my college degree before I got married (so that I’d finish school).    He taught me that an education was a gift and that I should not waste it!  He taught me that life is short, so make sure I ENJOY what I am doing.  He taught me that if I really love something I’d naturally spend a lot of time doing it without having to be paid.  My dad would spend hours on the couch doing math problems because he LOVED math!  We’d also see him making out basketball plays, even when he wasn’t coaching anymore.  I too do this blog because I love it.  I’m not being paid, but it brings me joy to learn things myself, and to help others. My dad taught me that my relationships and family are important, and that we need to nourish them.  He taught me that traveling is a MUST, and that we must take time out to see the world.  He taught me that I must take time out to just have fun doing the things that I love.  Most importantly I got to see his eyes beam brightly with love when he’d hold my son Mya as a baby and my daughter Victoria, and how he looked at them with love and amazement.  It taught me how special my kids are, and that each moment with them is a gift from God.

Thank you dad for teaching me all this… and so much more!

I love you forever… see you in heaven.

It’s Keepin’ It Real, Interactive Thursday!  I haven’t done one of these posts in awhile.  It’s long overdue.  This is where I ask a question via facebook and twitter and you respond with your real life issues or answers.  After you read what your fellow Fit Moms have said, I’ll give you a little more inspiration, or my two cents to solve the issue at hand.

Ideas for helping your picky eater eat their food and stop meal time fights?

“Last nights homework was on the food pyramid. This morning our “picky” eater chose cold broccoli (about the only veggie she likes) to put in her lunch. She was excited to be able to recognize the food group she was missing and loved choosing something herself! whoda guessed?”  Linda H.

“I always try to have veggies cut and ready. When I am a little late cooking dinner, or my kiddos are starving, I whip out a pretty veggie tray. Even my pickiest eater gobbles up the brocco and carrots. Then I don’t have to worry about forcing down veggies at dinner time!”  Amanda C.

“As a kid I didn’t like much fruit do too textures so I would peel them and my mom would make different kinds of yogurt dips, yummy! Veggies I have learned not to push the veggies they don’t like let them eat the ones they do, if they don’t like peas let them pick another green veggie ”  Danielle R.

“I use all the pre-made products that say serving of fruit and vegetables is included like V-8 juice drinks and Ragu spaghetti sauce. I do also insist that he eat just a little bit of whatever is served.”   Stacie D.

“Exposure, exposure, exposure, the more familiar I can get my picky eater with a food the more likely he is to try it. We grow the veg, we pick the veg, he helps cook the veg. he might like the veg…That being said my picky refuses everything but meat. Seriously, everything! Feeding him is a nightmare. Grandfather & Uncles have not outgrown it; so I’m not holding out much hope. Some people are just impossible to feed.”  Melistic

‘I find that just repeatedly serving an item and they eventually try it or get use to it. Or add it to something they do like.  I know salad dressing isn’t the healthiest but I would give my kids salad with plenty of dressing. They would li…ck off the dressing and ask for more but I’d tell them they had to eat the salad first before they got more dressing. They all eat salad now without a fight – even my 2yr old. (I do start decreasing the amount of dressing over time)”  Sharie F.

My 7 ideas on how to get picky eaters to eat.

First off let me tell you that I know how it feels to have a picky eater.  One of my children will eat whatever you put before him, sushi, salads, fruit that you’d see only on a movie about Mars, he’d try it and probably like it.  My daughter on the other hand is a little more of a challenge.  She’s definetely not the pickiest eater I’ve seen, but she used to give us a run for our money.

Here are some things we’ve done to help our picky one out (an help ourselves get our sanity back).

1.  Eliminate extra snacks. We noticed that when our little princess had lots of snacks during the day she wouldn’t want to eat her lunch or dinner.  The less snacks she had the more hungry she was and the more food she would try and eat.  It was amazing how she went from nibbling her lunch/dinner to gobbling it up just by reducing the snacks.

2.  Eliminate juice and sugary drinks during the day. Our dear daughter would want juice all the time, and when I was not Fit Moms Fit Kids minded, I would give it to her.  Again, she wouldn’t want to eat her lunch or dinner.  The extra calories, the sugar from the juice was filling her up.  Now she gets a glass of milk in the morning, and water throughout the day.  Sometimes for dinner she’ll get a small cup of juice (maybe).

3.  Try it in a different way. My picky eater hated salads!  She wouldn’t want to go near lettuce.  She’d scrunch up her little nose every time it was on her plate.  Last year we went raw for a month.  My husband prepared Nut “Meat” Tacos served in lettuce.  She devoured one and asked for more!! The same little one who wouldn’t eat lettuce chopped in a salad, loved it as a wrap!  So we started wrapping other veggies inside of a large lettuce leaf making a salad wrap, instead of a traditional salad.

4.  Be an example. I just don’t understand how parents want their kids to eat right, eat their veggies, and they won’t eat them.  I’ve noticed it’s usually the dad in the household.  It’s the old do what I say and not as I do.  That must change.  Everyone must try new things and eat well.

5. Play with your food. When you server your kids new things make up a cool story about it.  Ask them to try it while imagining they are in a far off land.  A recent article in Family Fun Magazine said that you can have your kids pretend they are food critics.  Give them notepads and let them critique the food.  That way they’ll have to try it!  Present your food in playful ways, like making a butterfly out of your veggies.

6.  Get them involved. My kids love to cook.  When I get my picky eater to help me in the kitchen to prepare meals she is more likely to try it and like it!  She wants to taste her creations.  Let your kids help you!

7.  Make a food passport. Get your picky eater excited about world travel.  Read them books, show them pictures.  Ask them if they’d like to take a trip around the world or country.  Let them pick a day of the week to “travel”.  On that day read them a little story about that city or country and make them a food from that place.  For example Japan, try sushi, or for Louisiana have them try gumbo.  Make a little passport, and buy some cool stamps or stickers.  Every time they try and eat most of their new meal they get a sticker or stamp in their “food passport”.

Annett Davis, Olympian & Founder of Fit Moms Fit Kids

Last week I had the opportunity to do a workshop about Fit Moms Fit Kids at the North American Christian Convention.  It was in Cincinnati and I live in California.  In years past I used to go to the airport and buy snacks.  The snacks I bought were candy bars, usually Snickers or Reese’s.  I’m trying to change the bad habits I used to have, replacing them with good ones.

One of the things I’ve noticed was that my healthy bars would get crushed during travel.  Who likes to eat a crushed bar, or smashed grapes? I know I don’t.  I had to figure out a way to keep them in tact during travel.  Here’s what I did.  You know those reusable sandwich boxes from the dollar store?  Well they aren’t just for sandwiches.  Throw your bars, your peanut butter pretzels, grapes, or anything that would normally get smashed into pieces into your sandwich box.  I used a little duct tape to make sure mine stayed shut.  Whenever I was hungry I dug right in.  It was wonderful!

Not one pretzel or bar was broken during travel.

7 Easy Snacks To Go!

• Peanut Butter Pretzels
• Popcorn
• Homemade Granola Bars
• Apple Slices  and Peanut Butter
• Mini whole wheat bagel with Almond Butter
• Dried cranberries and nuts (handful)
• Wheat Thins and String Cheese

Annett Davis, Olympian & Founder of Fit Moms Fit Kids