Top tips for health & beauty: Yes You Can Lose Weight and Eat Dessert Too!

Top tips for health & beauty: Yes You Can Lose Weight and Eat Dessert Too!: As my success has grown over the years I have found myself eating in nicer restaurants, and they have equally nicer dessert menus. This i...

The Trick That Makes Dieting Easier

The Trick That Makes Dieting Easier

There's an old song from the 1940s that says that if you want to be happy, "You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive!" I think that this is also really good advice for those of us who are trying to improve our diet and eating habits.

A lot of the dietary advice we get focuses on "bad" foods that need to be eliminated, things like snacks and desserts, French fries and soda pop -- you know, all the better things in life. But as anyone who has ever spent any time with a 2-year-old knows, the best way to focus that toddler's attention and will on a particular object or action is to forbid it.

I think our appetites are pretty much like toddlers. When we're told -- or even when we tell ourselves -- that we have to cut back or give up a favorite treat, it's hard not to feel deprived. It can be hard to stop thinking about that thing we can't have. And all that thinking about whatever it is we're trying to go without can make avoiding or resisting it feel even harder.

Focusing on Positives Can Make Dieting More Effective

This reminds me of a dietary study that came out a couple of years ago. They took a few hundred overweight adults who had just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and divided them into two groups. Both groups were told that they would need to make changes to their diet in order to lose weight and manage their disease. They were told to limit their total caloric intake and instructed on things like portion sizes. Beyond that, however, the two groups got different instructions.

Group 1 was taught how to limit their intake of fat to no more than 30 percent of calories and to keep their saturated fat under 10 percent. They were also told to avoid sweets and refined grains. This is the standard prescription for a reduced-fat, low-calorie diet.

Lucky Group 2, however, got a different prescription. They were told to increase their intake of vegetables, fish, and poultry, to choose whole grains, and to use olive oil as their primary source of fat. This is the standard Mediterranean diet prescription.

Four years later, Group 2 had lost more weight and was also only half as likely to need medication to control their blood sugar. (See also: "Can You Reverse Diabetes With Diet?")

In the research paper, the researchers talk a lot about the nutritional differences between the two diets -- which, quite honestly, weren't all that dramatic -- and how they may have contributed to the different outcomes. But I was struck by something else: Group 1 was told what not to eat and Group 2 was told what to eat more of. And look who fared better. I suspect that focusing on the positives rather than the negatives might be a much better strategy for handling that inner toddler -- a strategy that we could use to make our efforts to eat healthier just that much easier.

No Dessert? No Problem!

As many of you know, I have a bit of a sweet tooth, and I've never been able to completely shake the habit of wanting to finish every meal with something sweet. At the same time, I'm fully aware of the dangers of excessive sugar consumption. If I were to focus on going without dessert for an entire week, my inner toddler would probably stamp her foot and threaten to hold her breath until someone forked over some of those little red Swedish fish that I -- I mean, she -- loves so much.

Instead, I take my inner toddler to the market and let her pick out seven different kinds of luscious fruit -- a different one for every night of the week! The more exotic or unusual, the better. Having an apple every night after diner wouldn't be that exciting. But ripe berries on Monday. fresh pineapple on Tuesday, a juicy peach on Wednesday, decadent figs on Thursday... that's something I can authentically look forward to.

Likewise, I've found that serving up two or even three different kinds of vegetables at dinner -- each prepared in a favorite, yummy way -- completely takes the sting out of eliminating the bread, rolls and other minimally-nutritious starches.

And instead of going out for Italian food and exhausting my willpower on not eating all the pasta -- or heading to a burger bar and drooling over my neighbor's fries (and once I've drooled on it, it's mine, right?) -- I try to find enticing restaurants that are more in line with my dietary strategy, such as a tapas place or that bistro with the to-die-for salads. (See also: "Tips for Eating Healthy When Eating Out.")

Got the idea? My challenge for you this week is to accentuate the positives in your healthy diet. Rather than focus on things that you're trying not to eat, find ways to get more excited about the stuff you know you should be eating more of. Feel free to try this on any actual toddlers you may have in your life -- or, for that matter, partners or teenagers who act like toddlers when you try to encourage them to eat better.

And then, report back here. What strategies did you come up with? How did it work for you? Is there anything to the idea that focusing on what you're going to add to your menus is a more effective way to motivate positive change than focusing on what you're giving up or cutting back on?

Healthier Ways to Bake Without Butter or Oil

Whether it’s to cut calories, explore new flavors, or just make due with available ingredients, recipe substitutions are an inevitable — and fun! — part of the cooking experience. And after trying dozens and dozens of swaps over the past year or so, we’ve even come to prefer a few “replacements” to their original counterparts. When it’s time to satisfy that sweet tooth, consider these healthier substitutions for baking fats.

• Unsweetened Applesauce
  Swap For: Oil or butter
  Fruit for fat? Yeah. For sweeter recipes like brownies and fruity muffins, this swap is a definite winner. Applesauce offers the same consistency as butter or oil, but with zero fat, a little extra natural sweetness, and fewer calories (though it will add a touch more sugar). It even works in boxed mixes! Try it in some delicious blueberry muffins for a twist on classic flavors.
• Avocado Puree 
  Swap For: Butter
  Doubting this swap? We did, too — until we whipped up some dark chocolate avocado cookies. Mashed or pureed avocado has a similar texture to butter with more heart-healthy fats and a smooth, rich taste that pairs perfectly with chocolate. We’re looking forward to trying this swap in many batches of brownies and cakes to come!
• Mashed Bananas 
  Swap For: Oil or Butter
  This one’s similar to the avocado swap but a whole lot sweeter, ripe bananas add potassium and fiber to our favorite recipes. It’s a proven star in sweet stuff, too (banana bread, amiright?). And when combined with other baking fat swaps, it’s easy to make an oil and butter-free banana bread as delicious as traditional recipes.
• Prune Puree 
  Swap For: Butter
  Prunes don’t always get the best reputation when it comes to taste and versatility, but 1/3 cup of prune puree can easily replace a stick of butter in denser baked goods. It’s also great for dark and dense cookies, brownies, and even cakes.
• Ricotta Cheese 
  Swap For: Cream cheese
  Ricotta — even the whole milk variety — is a lighter option than cream cheese when it comes to calorie count. And it bakes into an excellent cheesecake with a lighter, fluffier texture.
• Ground Flax Seed 
  Swap For: Oil or Butter
  Rich in omega-3 fats and with a distinct nutty flavor, ground flax seed is one of the most surprising fat swaps out there. Mix three tablespoons of ground flax with one tablespoon of water for a paste that subs in for every tablespoon of oil or butter. Ground flax is perfect for recipes that already have a strong nutty flavor. And here’s a fun fact: One tablespoon of ground flax plus two to three tablespoons of warm water makes a “vegan egg” and can be used as an egg replacement, too.
• Marshmallow Fluff 
  Swap For: Butter and Sugar (Frosting)
  It’s legendarily sweet, but marshmallow fluff actually contains fewer calories and less sugar than conventional frosting. Bonus: having leftover fluff for some super quick s’mores.

Yes you can eat desert & loose weight

Yes You Can Lose Weight and Eat Dessert Too!

As my success has grown over the years I have found myself eating in nicer restaurants, and they have equally nicer dessert menus. This is the tough part, and in my opinion partly to blame for our obesity problem we as a nation face. How do you get through a dinner and not reward yourself with a nice fattening dessert loaded with Sugar, Salt and or fat?

We all have a couple of options available to us as our dinner comes to an end and it's time to order dessert.

We could have been proactive throughout the day so that we could skip counting calories at dinner, maybe an extra 10 minutes on the treadmill and a lighter lunch than usual, that would earn us special treat, and we can hope to call the day even.

We could skip dessert, but that would ruin my article and what fun is a social dinner without dessert?

We could eat our meal without a thought for our calorie counting and pop a couple of Proactol diet pills at the end, sure it would work, but we like to stress diet pills should be used to get you started, what about dessert six months from now, when you have stopped taking the diet pills and you are just trying to keep the weight off?

Astonishing one-third of the average American's diet is junk food, and the other two-thirds doesn't cut it nutritionally, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Let's choose to eat dessert in Moderation

So now we need to pick an item to feast upon. Watch out for the "low fat" hype people tend to think they can eat twice as much because its low fat and although that may be true, you won't lose weight that way. Keep your servings small, if your at a really fancy restaurant you won't have a choice in this. A fresh fruit salad or sorbet will keep the fat low, but for me to feel mentally satisfied from dessert it must have some fat, or it's just not dessert, so I opt for the apple pie a la mode and pop a couple of diet pills. Nobodies perfect!

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