The Halloween Candy Experiment: The Results

Last Friday, Oct. 29th, I decide to do a little (non-scientific) experiment. The general plan was to add candy to my diet for a week and see how much I gained in the time span. I’ve been under my goal weight since the latter half of August. Since then, I’ve been maintaining my weight with only slight ups and downs in weight during that time, so I didn’t feel like I was putting my weight in jeopardy.

So, last week I came up with the idea, “I want to enjoy Halloween and don’t I want to worry about avoiding all the treats my kids/co-workers will be bringing into the house/office,” the ‘Halloween Candy Experiment’. (Side Note: I was calling this the ‘Halloween Candy Test’ all week but, ‘Experiment’ sounds a lot cooler) The basic idea of the ‘experiment’ was that I would continue to be on a ‘maintenance’ diet/exercise with MyFitnessPal but I wouldn’t keep track of the candy that I would eat during the week. In other words my daily goal was 2250 calories a day but whatever candy I ate wouldn’t be logged into that goal. If I had to do it all over again I would have logged all the candy too.

I started off the week all excited and did enjoy not worrying at all about what I was doing. I would make my way down the hall to ‘my dealer’ of candy (a co-worker) who always has candy on her desk all year long and during the holidays she brings out the good stuff. I found myself going down by her office just to ask a question to anyone near it or to make bathroom breaks (her office wasn’t the bathroom just near it). I think by the end of the day on the first day I was as high on sugar as a ‘humming bird on crack’. This sugar high wasn’t good energy though. I went for a run when I got home but it turned into only a walk because my leg muscles and tummy started aching ¼ of a mile into it.

At home I had become that ‘monster’ from my childhood who’d steal all the good stuff out of my trick or treat bag overnight (yes, I know it was you, mom/dad). I was going in and pilfering Kit Kats, Snickers, Butterfingers, M&Ms, 3 Musketeers, and (my favorite) Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups from my kid’s bags. I even made sure to purloin evenly from each child’s bag so as not to raise suspicion between the two.

All was going well with the ‘experiment’ until Monday. I had lost my motivation to exercise. I’ve been running three times a week since June and I just didn’t feel like running any more. I still went for walks but just couldn’t get myself up to run. On top of that I wasn’t eating as well either. My evening sack is normally an apple and peanut butter but that had been replaced with candy. When I would snack on cheese and crackers or chips and salsa I’d continue to snack way past my cut off point and over eat. I had lost my discipline.

Wednesday afternoon I had cut off my candy intake. I just wasn’t liking the way I was physically feeling plus at work all that was left in ‘my dealer’s’ candy stash was Necco Wafers and Sweet Tarts (blah). So this decreased my sugar intake and I was able the last two evenings to get myself motivated enough to go running, but my pace had slowed down from a 8.5 min. mile to a 9 min. mile.

THE FINAL RESULT: My weigh-in last Friday was 196.8lbs this morning’s weigh-in was 199.4 for a total of 2.6lbs in a week. My prediction was that I would be around a 2lbs gain so I wasn’t too far off. This means I’ll be switching off my ‘maintaining’ goal on MFP and going to be on a lose 1lb a week goal for the next couple of weeks (I like having a couple of pounds of cushion under my goal).

Take whatever you want out of my findings from this (unscientific) experiment. Yes, I did do this for selfish reasons (enjoying candy) but in the end I didn’t like the way I felt. I didn’t feel horrible, I just felt blah and unmotivated and that’s the exact opposite I’ve felt since I’ve been on this wonderful web site.