I don’t know about you, but I have always had a serious sweet tooth!
And I mean SERIOUS. I love sweets, always have, always will. When I was a teenager I could kill a whole carton of ice cream in about 2 days.
I could get away with that when I was a teenager and even in my very early 20’s but not anymore. One of the things I knew I had to get under control as an adult was my sweet tooth. Especially since I knew I wanted a career in fitness. I realized I needed to conquer my sugar cravings.
My plan of attack to conquer the sweet tooth…
The first thing I had to do was re-train my taste buds.
When you’ve been eating foods made with processed sugar and lots of it, it’s hard to just up and switch to dark chocolate over milk chocolate, to enjoy fruit as a treat instead of candy. It’s even hard to get used to some mineral waters instead of lemonade or iced tea.
So I began to slowly switch things out of my diet, substituting lower sugar alternatives to my high sugar regulars over time. I knew that if I did it all at once I might not stick. It didn’t take long before I found myself truly enjoying things with a lot less sweetness.
But the biggest step I had to take to really pull the reigns in on my sugar cravings was to get off artificial sweeteners.
Even though these are considered healthier by some because of the lower calorie count, they still keep your taste buds conditioned to like the taste of super sweet things. And as long as you keep giving this artificial sweetness to your taste buds you will always crave the real thing. Now there are a lot more important reasons why I gave up artificial sweeteners but we’ll talk about that in another post.
So after I got my body used to the low sugar lifestyle I still had to come up with some alternatives to when the sugar bug bit and would not let go. I’ve compiled a list of a few of my favorites.
1. I love the 100 calorie 70% dark chocolate bars from trader Joe’s. It’s made with smooth Belgian chocolate and it is soo tasty.
If you don’t get to Trader Joe’s just make sure the dark chocolate you buy is at least 70% dark chocolate. If it’s less it usually has too much sugar. And watch your portion sizes.
2. Frozen banana/chocolate blender ice cream:
(I ran across this recipe online and I think it’s great)
This is more of an ice cream consistency rather than a smoothie. Put
1 frozen ripe banana chunked into a blender with 1/3 cup milk, 2 tbsp
non-sweetened cocoa powder, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and a sprinkle of
stevia to sweeten. 1/2 scoop of protein powder is optional too.
Blend it all together to an ice cream consistency. This is a much
healthier, lower-calorie, lower-sugar alternative to ice cream, and still delicious!
Stevia is an all natural sweetener that you can get from Trader Joe’s also.
3. My most recent healthy sweet fix is from a company called Prograde. They are called Cravers. I like the Peanut Butter flavor. It is truly delicious! And it’s 100% organic; with dark chocolate and other healthy ingredients… it makes the perfect healthy dessert or snack during the day without an overload of calories… only 180 calories.
You can get your Peanut Butter Prograde Cravers from…
www.wholelifefitness.getprograde.com
I hope you enjoy these healthier dessert ideas!
Let me know what you think.
Sarai Jones