ChickSpeak

When we are little, we recognize dessert as the reward that comes after a meal. For as long as history can date back, humans have craved sweet, sugary treats that follow their main meal course. In fact, the actual meaning of the word “dessert” comes from the French name “desservir” which means “to clear the table”. For this reason, the follow up to the majority of large family meals involves cakes, pies, ice creams, puddings, and other tasty treats.

Because desserts are normally high in calories, attempting a weight loss plan while still incorporating dessert at every meal constitutes a large problem. The good news is that you do not have to sacrifice your dessert habit in order to simultaneously lose weight. These rules will help you deal with your weigh loss programs without forcing you to sacrifice the traditional human necessity: dessert.

Do not consume more than you burn

This fundamental rule of weight loss seems to be overlooked too often than not. Biologically, if your caloric intake is lower than the amount of calories you burn in a day, you will lose weight; therefore, if you do not eat a large dessert portion, you will not be consuming a great deal of dessert calories. The first step to figuring this out is to calculate how many calories you should be consuming daily. You can figure this out on many different websites that use information including your lifestyle, age, weight and more to figure out your appropriate daily consumption.

Counting your calories

Once you’ve figured out how many calories your body needs, you can begin adjusting your lifestyle to fit with your body’s natural processing. The mechanism used by weight loss programs like Weight Watchers is as straightforward as possible. The meals and snacks are given points according to how high they are in calories. Participants are not allowed to surpass a certain amount of points in a given day, which basically means that they must consume no more than a set number of calories. Therefore, if you limit your meals and snacks to a certain amount of calories and make sure to leave room for dessert, weight gain should be easily prevented. Diet Bites includes detailed lists for calorie counting on their websites in addition to diet menus, step-by-step plans, information about proper weight and low calorie desserts.

Remember that exercise does not always mean the gym

Every time we walk up a flight of stairs or walk to and from the bathroom during classes or at work, we are, in fact, exercising. The more of it we do, the more calories we burn. It sounds too simple to be true, but using your lunch break to go for a 20 minute stroll could easily provide you with room for dessert at the end of your meal. It is important to remember that the more opportunities you give yourself to include exercise in your daily life, the more capable you will be to include a cookie at the end of your meal.

Low calorie dessert options

While we struggle to limit our dessert intake and keep our caloric levels to a minimum, sometimes just a small taste of sweetness can satisfy our cravings instead of overindulgence in a five-start dessert. Some low-calorie dessert options include sugar-free jello (10 calories), Del-Monte sugar peaches (25 calorie cups), Nestle fat-free hot cocoa (40 calories), sugar free jello puddings (60 calories), Vita-top muffins (100 calories), Kashi waffles (160 calories for two), or a small handful of chocolate chips amounting to no more than 70 calories. If we curb our cravings to healthier, low-calorie dessert options, we are not sacrificing the traditional sweet taste at the end of our meals; however we preventing sabotage to our weight loss goals.

Jenn Sinrich is in her third year at Northeastern University majoring in History and Journalism. She loves living in Boston and especially likes running by the Charles River. She enjoys acting and theater, musicals and listening to show tunes, scrap booking and collaging, and anything else that encourages and inspires creativity. 

Photo from here.