Sweets

carmenmgonzabcc

Hi y’all, trying this to see how it goes. I love to cook, and I actually love veggies and eating healthy. But I also llllllove sweets. That is my nightmare. Any ideas how to change my eating habits?

nossmf

Personally, I'm a firm believer in portion control rather than outright elimination of stuff I love. One of the best tools to help with portion control is the almighty Ziploc sandwich bag. If you treat yourself by repeatedly reaching into a bag, you can easily eat 2, 3, 5 times the recommended portion at once. Instead, when you bring home a treat (cookies, chips, pretzels, etc) then immediately open the container and split the contents into sandwich bags, with each bag getting one portion (for example, two cookies). When you get ready to enjoy your preferred treat, simply grab one bag, open and enjoy until the bag is empty. No refills or grabbing additional bags!

Along with this is planning your daily calorie intake to leave enough room in your day to have a sweet bag without going over your calorie allotment. I prefer to plan out my day's calories in advance, so I know if I have room after lunch/dinner is accounted for to include a daily sweet treat (in my case, the last food eaten right before bedtime, a great way to end the day). If my plan says I'm going to be high, can I make any adjustments? Maybe eat only one dinner roll instead of two? Or swap my planned lunch for a different one with fewer calories I can save for later? Proper nutrition in the form of adequate protein and fruits and veggies for vitamins/minerals/fiber take priority over dessert, and every once in a while I simply do not have room and must live without for that one day. But most days (at least 9 out of 10) I find if I plan, I can make sure to have room.