Losing weight may well be the most popular dream in the country right now.
I say it’s a dream only because so few people take any concrete steps along the way. When you ask them, they’ll make any number of comments, but for a lot, it really boils down to how they can manage their sweet tooth while trying to lose weight.
I get it.
Part of the allure of flexible dieting was the fact that I didn’t have to completely ignore sweets if I wanted them. While I don’t have a major sweet tooth, there are times I like a good treat. Who doesn’t?
But that means finding a way to make it work. Here are my suggestions.
Quest Protein Chocolate Chip Cookies
For a treat, these are my go-to. I’m not even kidding.
Once upon a time, there was a perception that anything healthy had to taste bad. It was a fair assumption, too. Back then, everything healthy was nasty as hell.
But those days are behind us. Now, if you’re interested in losing weight, you can have your cookie and eat it too.
What I’m saying is that these things are legitimately good. Now, they may not taste as good as some chocolate chip cookies you might find, particularly homemade, but these are still pretty damn tasty. And I don’t mean “tasty for health food.” I mean legitimately tasty.
Additionally, they boast 15 grams of protein and nine grams of fiber.
Quest White Chocolate Raspberry Protein Bar
Protein bars are often thought of primarily as supplements to your everyday nutrition, and for a pretty good reason. Most of them have a good bit of protein, some carbs, and can serve as a kind of meal replacement.
However, it doesn’t hurt if you’re losing weight to try and make them a treat in their own right, now does it?
For me, this is my hands-down favorite protein bar on the planet, and I’m not generally a fan of white chocolate. However, this one is pure luxury.
Ice Cream Cups
Let’s face it, no one is about to classify ice cream as healthy. Not seriously, anyway.
However, flexible dieting tells us that we can eat whatever we want so long as it fits our macros. For me, I’ll occasionally structure things so I have enough of everything left for a couple of individual cups of ice cream.
I’ll be honest, one should be my limit, but that little of something just pisses me off, so I hold off at two. I’m partial to the Blue Bell Sundae Cups, but whatever you want, go for it.
Just don’t depend on it and learn to limit your intake.
Further, this listing can serve as a sort of proxy for whatever treats you want. Losing weight can be important, but don’t feel like you have to turn your back on everything.
Remember, this is for life, so you might as well learn now how to control your portions of these treats. The key is to make sure they really are just treats and not a large portion of your daily calories.
Conclusion
The trick with managing a sweet tooth is really two-fold.
Step one is to pick healthier options, particularly higher protein choices like protein bars and cookies. (Quest also makes protein chips, but I haven’t tried any of those, which may be useful for your chip cravings.)
Step two is to simply learn to tone down how much you consume. For me, ice cream was an event, even if I ate it every night. I’d eat a pile of the stuff and guess what? I got fat.
Shocking, I know.
But now that I learned how to tone down that, I’ve eating things like chocolate cake and ice cream and still lost weight. While it sounds too good to be true, the reality is that I don’t let food control me the way so many people do these days.
By doing that, coupled with some healthier options that help me manage my macronutrient counts, I’ve lost around 60 pounds and am still going strong.
And believe me, I’m nothing special.
