If you have a sweet tooth then you know how difficult it is to stay on a diet, lose weight, or improve overall health with the beckoning call of sugar ever present. Sweet snacks and healthier desserts can lower your sugar consumption and improve your health.
Sugar, for most people, isn’t bad for you unless you over consume. Which these days can be really easy to do with all of the sugary soft drinks, cakes, cookies, and candy. Sugar can cause diabetes, inflammation to be worse, weight gain, and heart disease.
Sweets Portion Control
Breaking sweets into snack size portions can make a huge difference in managing your indulgences. You don’t have to completely quit sugar. Just portion it out more thoughtfully. Sweet snacks tend to be high in calories so be prepared to do some math if you’re counting calories.
Look at labels, use a food scale, whatever you need to portion out about 100-150 calories for a sweet snack. The hard part may also be limiting yourself to only one or two snacks a day. It might be easier to portion out day by day or week by week knowing you only have a limited amount for that time period.
Healthier Dessert Ideas
Sweet treats don’t have to be all about the sugar either. Healthier desserts can still provide some satiation for your sweet tooth while better fitting into your meal plan. Another way to look at it, is that lower calorie sweets means you can eat more of them. So what they don’t make up for in pure satisfaction, they can make up for in volume.
Here are some healthier dessert and sweet snack options:
- Fruit-forward treats: fresh fruit skewers, chocolate-dipped berries, or baked apples with cinnamon. Fruits are high in natural sugars, which is why they’re commonly paired with desserts in the first place but they can be a great alternative to artificial candies and heavy cakes.
- Frozen delights: homemade fruit popsicles, frozen yogurt bark with nuts and fruit, or frozen banana “ice cream.” Perfect the summer and a nice change of pace from just eating fresh fruit or a bowl of yogurt.
- Protein-based sweets: Greek yogurt parfaits with berries and granola, peanut butter protein balls, or chia seed pudding. These are definitely great for protein focused diets but can get old quickly. Try mixing it up regularly with different fruits and nutes.
- Better-for-you baked goods: oatmeal raisin cookies made with mashed banana, whole-wheat muffins, or almond flour brownies. No-sugar baking is a thing and you learn more about it in our recent article here.
Smart Swaps for Sweet Snacks and Healthier Desserts
Swap to a healthier, slightly less sweet, option for some of your favorite foods and dramatically cut down the sugar.
- Swap butter with mashed banana, avocado, or unsweetened applesauce in baked goods. We use avocado oil often as a substitute and although it doesn’t impart that same buttery flavor, it does the job for cooking.
- Use dark chocolate (70% cacao or higher) for more antioxidants. Although a little more bitter, you still get the chocolate flavor without all of the added sugar.
- Replace refined sugar with honey, maple syrup, or dates. Natural sweeteners can make a huge difference in how you approach sweetness. Look for all natural versions without added sugar.
