Tricks With Your Treats

Repurposed Treats

Are you being taunted by leftover Halloween candy?  I've been thinking of ways to get my kids to be excited about using their candy for something other than decaying their teeth.  I didn't want to give them the typical speech about picking a few pieces & dumping the rest.  I wanted them to be truly excited about the alternative to eating it.  Here is what I've come up with:  Because the holiday season is officially among us (I consider Nov. 1 to be official), I was trying to find new uses for the candy that could be applied to our upcoming holiday events.  I love the idea of making holiday ornaments with candy.

I found a recipe with instructions on how to make the above style of ornaments.  You can use this link to find the instructions.  You can use any hard candy and 6 ounces will make about 30 ornaments.  I think you could just pour the melted candies into metal cookie cutters and let them cool for an even simpler solution.  

I few other things you might consider doing with your leftover candy:

 
1. If you have a baby shower coming up, make a game out of the fun size candy bars:  Using newborn sized disposable diapers, you put a different type of candy bar into each diaper and melt them a little in the microwave.  People pass the diaper around and try to guess what type of candy is in each diaper.  Most correct answers wins!
2. Use it to complete a homework assignment.  My daughter needed to make a cell membrane for science class.  She was able to use the candy to represent different parts of the cell:
3. You can save it for next years costume.  My son got a ton of Smarties last night.  I saw a great costume idea where you take the rolls of smarties and pin them all over a pair of pants.  What's the costume?  Smarty pants!  
4. I am also working on some centerpiece ideas utilizing leftover candy.  Standby for future posts to see of they were a success.

If you have any other ideas, let me know!

Here is what my day started with:

I'm running low on fresh greens, so my typical green green drink was substituted with a pomelo, beet & ginger drink.  It was a refreshing change.

Need a Lift?

Lately, a common request I've been getting in the gym is "Help me tone and lift my butt!"  Never fear, I know just the moves.  If you are coming to the gym this week, brace yourself, because we will be doing this one...with a few twists:

The side lunge is a great way to work your legs and glutes.  I like the side lunge because of it's versatility.  This week we are going to be doing side lunges while holding a weight plate at the chest.  If you push your butt back while lowering into your side lunge & holding the weight in at your chest, your gluteus muscles will really have to react while you draw your leg back to the center.  Squeeze your butt & tilt your hips forward in the middle.  Alternate sides.  An added bonus is that you will also be working your inner and outer thighs as well as your quads.  Makes sure you don't step out too far.  This will make it more difficult to keep your shinbone stacked over your ankle (which helps protect your knee).  

A few other variations we may try:

Keeping one foot on a glider while sliding into the side lunge position.  This will help us deepen the affect that the lunge has on the hip adductors and abductors. 

Performing a straight leg deadlift in between each rep to better incorporate the hamstrings.

Hinging forward and tapping the ground with each lunge to better isolate the gluteus muscles and incorporate more core engagement.

Sounds like fun, right?!?!