Gary Taubes has written a new article on how Big Sugar promotes and defends its produce, entitled: "Big Sugar and Sweet Little Lies".

Taubes is a top-notch science journalist, who has written for Discover, Science, and the New York Times Magazine, and is the author of the 2011 best-seller “Why We Get Fat” which is featured here on DietHobby in the section BOOKTALK. He is currently writing a book about sugar.

Gary Taubes also discusses the Sugar Industry’s Secrets in the video below.

The truth is that a great many people don't want to hear the Truth.
They want to hear what makes them comfortable.

Due to the frequency and high-visability of advertising by Marketing Interests … which includes medical professionals, as well as the numerous books and programs involving diets and “anti-diets”…, people have come to expect to hear Magical Solutions to problems involving the issues of Food, Eating, and Obesity.

Very often, people don't want to be confronted, challenged or questioned, and they definitely don't want to have to change their Beliefs, Behaviours or Habits. It’s too uncomfortable and too inconvenient…. And too much work. Sometimes one can be fine with the truth just as long as it doesn't mean that one has to modify or interrupt one’s life in any significant way.

Instead of being open to learning some valuable truth, truth that could change one’s reality for the better, often many people can become defensive, critical and angry. Acknowledging certain things might mean that a person would have to change their belief system.

One might even have to give up some favorite Fantasies,
Such as their SOMEDAY achievment of: 

• 6 pack abs;
• a lithe, slender body;
• or a lean physique;
• or even the idea that one can forever look and feel youthful.
  

One might have to accept that
... in order to achieve a body that is just somewhere around normal weight,... 
a person will have to behave differently, and change their way of eating food ... FOREVER.
And behaving differently is not an easy thing for anyone to do, even when it’s only for a short time.  

Each of us has different diet preferences on Halloween,

Some people have food plans which do not allow sweets, and they choose to follow that plan precisely.
.......Note: I've found this choice easier to make while involved in following a low-carb food plan.

Some people choose to incorporate a few sweet treats into their daily plan.

Some people choose to abandon their food plan entirely and binge out on Halloween sweets.

Whatever your personal choice, you have my Holiday support.
However, when making your food decisions, here is something to keep in mind.

LOW-CALORIE CHOCOLATE TREATS
Each one of these tiny treats has 20 - 35 calories).

3 Musketeers Minis
Hershey's Kisses
Sixlets 8-piece tubes
Tootsie Roll Midgees
Whoppers Malted Milk Balls 3-piece tubes

CHOCOLATE MINIS
Minis are the small, typically square morsels. The kinds below have 35 - 55 calories per piece.

Baby Ruth
Butterfinger
Hershey's Special Dark, Krackel, Milk Chocolate, and Mr. Goodbar
Kit Kat
Milky Way
Nestlé Crunch
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Snickers
Twix

SNACK-SIZE/FUN-SIZE CHOCOLATE
Snack-size and fun-size candies are usually about 2 inches long and weigh in at around half an ounce. The ones listed here have 60 - 85 caloriesper piece, pack, bag, or box.

3 Musketeers
Baby Ruth
Butterfinger
Hershey's Milk Chocolate
Junior Mints
Kit Kat (one 2-piece bar)
M&M's Milk Chocolate
Milky Way
Nestlé Crunch
Raisinets
Snickers
York Peppermint Patties

SNACK-SIZE/FUN-SIZE CHOCOLATE, Higher-calorie
Same specifics as the last list of snack-size/fun-size treats (about 2 inches long and half an ounce in weight), but these are a little higher in stats. Each bar or pack has 90 - 95 calorie).

100 Grand
M&M's Peanut
Mr. Goodbar
PayDay

The end of October is a challenging time for me.  It marks the beginning of the holiday season of parties and events, which always includes food. Halloween kicks things off and then on to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Holiday seasons tend to give a great many people the binge bug. From late November through New Year's Eve, the holiday season can seem like a six-week-long smorgasbord. Larger, richer meals, special desserts, a few more h’orderves, another handful of nuts, a glass of punch.

When trying for a balanced diet, It's easy to lose both the balance and the diet.

Opportunities are endlessly staged in front of us ... holiday celebrations, family gatherings and friendly festivities.

It would be great to be able to successfully diet all throughout the holiday season.

It would be good to keep from overeating on special holiday occasions. 

 I’ll settle for reducing my food celebrations to a limited few.

I am working toward making my extra food occasions into one-day-only-celebrations on the actual holiday itself. Because actually:  Halloween is one day. Thanksgiving is one day. Christmas and Christmas Eve are two days. New Year’s Eve is one day. My birthday is in there too, and that’s one day. So that totals six special Holidays for me, and one-at-a-time, I can choose not to eat myself sick on any or all of those days. Six Celebration days is just under 10% of the Sixty-three days between Halloween and New Year’s Day . While overeating 10% of the time is not ideal, it is far better than overeating 30% to 100% of the time.

Even “normal” people tend to gain 5 lbs over the holidays, and then work to take them off in the new year. Unfortunately, here in my 7th year of maintenance, while my own body seems willing to easily PUT ON additional weight, it will then absolutely refuse to drop off that regained weight later.

Nowadays, losing weight is extremely difficult for me. As an older, short, normal-weight, sedentary, reduced-obese, female, my daily calorie burn is so low (daily average about 1050 calories) that I can’t manage to drop it down more than a couple of hundred calories (daily average about 850 calories), and …. according to my own recollection, and my detailed personal records……, doing that makes my body extra hungry, and it also becomes very tired and sleepy, which causes me to lie around more, and sleep longer, and my responsive behavior works to drop my metabolism down near the level of my diet calorie intake….resulting in little or no weight-loss. It’s a vicious cycle, which I’m trying to figure out how to overcome.

If I can lose a bit of weight between now and the end of the year, 

it will be great,
but my own 2012 Holiday goal is to gain zero lbs between now and the end of the year.

Life has taught me a lesson that applies to many different areas.
I’ve found that this lesson holds true even with regards to
Dieting, Weight-Loss, and Maintenance of Weight-loss.

Inspiration can come from many places.
The video below inspires me.