The holidays have officially arrived.

You're in luck.

Baked these  Chocolate Chip Pumpkin cupcakes
for Thanksgiving w/ butter cream frosting
 (using grass-fed butter). 

It's not too hard to keep the pounds away and still enjoy your holiday festivities.

First of all, don't be so hard on yourself that when you eat that last pumpkin cupcake you regret it for three days. Just try to enjoy it. You don't do this ALL year long.

• Use coconut or almond flour. Both are kind of tricky to deal with, but you'll get the hang of it pretty fast. 

• And, another option is to make your own cupcakes out of different ingredients. Whole Foods and or a local health store in your neighborhood sells gluten free flour. Try Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour. 
• The thing about this gluten free baking flour is, if you have a hard time baking with coconut flour or almond flour (both take some getting used to, they're both have a thicker texture when you eat it) is that you don't have a hint of coconut taste and it's the same texture and consistency of flour with gluten in it. At least it tastes and feels like it. 

•  Substitute ingredients. If you don't want to cook with sunflower oil, you can simply look up a conversion chart online, and find out how much butter (or quality olive oil, if you must) equals our to the requested amount of sunflower oil (or whatever kind of oil the original recipe requires).

There are little things here and there you can do to keep your holiday flavors in the oven (or microwave) and enjoy the festivities. Dig around and see what you can find, who says you have to sya goodbye to holiday flavorfulness?