Can i eat sweets and still lose weight

I want to start this article off by saying people should eat whatever they want to, whenever they want to. There are no "good" or "bad" foods, just foods that are more nutritious than others.

Nothing should be "off-limits," and if you're trying to lose weight that's great if that's your goal, but don't feel pressured to! OK, now that we got that out of the way, I should admit that I am one of those people on a weight-loss journey. Not because I'm trying to achieve a certain aesthetic or because I feel pressured to — I didn't even try to lose weight before my wedding! I want to get my health under control, and also be a little lighter so I can power through my workouts less weight to try and pull during pull-ups!

I've been using a calorie-tracking app to track my food and I aim to stay within a calorie target each day. Since starting this journey, I'm down 10 pounds — slowly, but surely. Since this isn't a specific diet and my only goal is to hit a specific calorie target, no foods are "off-limits.

I should also admit that I'm not a huge sweets person: cake doesn't tempt me, I couldn't care less about cupcakes, and I would rather have a slice of pizza than a piece of tiramisu. But I do like something sweet after dinner, and if I told myself dessert was completely off limits, it would make me crave it more, leading to an unhealthy binge and probable weight gain. So I wanted to enjoy dessert every night for a week and see if that had any impact on my weight loss. Turns out, there's a method behind this way of thinking.

Registered dietitian and ACSM-certified personal trainer Jim White recommends his clients enjoy calories of whatever they want at the end of the day, even if they are trying to lose weight. It will help you get through each day and help you stick to your plan. Jim said if you can budget for this calories within your daily calorie target, it won't have an impact on your weight-loss goals at all.

But even if you go over by calories every once in a while, it won't totally derail your progress. With those words of wisdom in mind, my experiment began. A big part of this experiment was being able to eat the sweet foods I enjoy. A handful of berries wasn't going to cut is as dessert if what I was really craving was a piece of chocolate. Dessert and weight loss: The two don't have to be mutually exclusive! In fact, we'd argue that if you love sweets , cutting them out altogether could hurt, not help, when it comes to losing weight.

Yes, we're saying you can have your cake and eat it too and still lose weight. The key is to make healthier choices when it comes to eating dessert, whether it's what you're eating, how often you're eating or how much. Wondering how to calculate your calories for weight loss?

Download the MyPlate app to do the job and help you track your intake, so you can stay focused and achieve your goals! If you have a serious sweet tooth and are trying to lose weight , skipping sweets altogether could backfire. Enjoying dessert may actually help keep you on track — here's why:. If you attempt this approach by banishing all "bad" foods and trying to sustain yourself on only "good" foods, it's likely you'll end up feeling deprived.

Deprivation is not fun, and the feeling can make it even more difficult to stay away from the things you enjoy. Worse yet, totally depriving yourself of dessert may increase your cravings, according to the Mayo Clinic. If you allow yourself to enjoy dessert as part of your weight-loss journey, you'll be less likely to binge or "fall of the wagon.

Deeming certain foods as off-limits and depriving ourselves of their enjoyment only increases our chances of bingeing on them later. This is called the restrict-binge cycle, as explained by the Multi-Service Eating Disorder Association. In other words, bingeing can actually be a symptom of overly restricting yourself. Instead, if you know you have a consistent hankering for the sweet stuff, factor that into your weight-loss approach. My biggest "issue" and source of guilt is my sweet tooth, so that's where I focused.

I tried scheduling a dessert I looked forward to into every single day. Less often might work for some people. But knowing my cravings, I acknowledged that I needed that frequency to feel satisfied and not deprived. Scheduling might still seem pretty rule-oriented, but it was key for me.

As someone who typically makes eating decisions based on my emotions , I wanted this to be more structured. Every Sunday, I would take a look at my week and schedule in my daily dessert, keeping portion sizes in mind. I was also careful not to bring large amounts of dessert home, but to buy single portions or go out for a dessert.

This was important in the beginning so I wouldn't be tempted to overdo it. And the health factor of the desserts varied. Some days, the dessert would be a bowl of blueberries with dark chocolate drizzled on top. Other days it would be a small bag of candy or a doughnut, or going out for ice cream or sharing a dessert with my husband. If I had a huge craving for something I hadn't worked into my plan for the day, I'd tell myself I could schedule it in and have it the next day-and I made sure I kept that promise to myself.

An amazing thing happened after trying this for only a week. Desserts lost their power over me. My " sugar addiction " seemed to almost disappear. I still love sweet foods but am completely satisfied having smaller amounts of them. I eat them often and, the rest of the time, I'm able to make healthier choices. The beauty of it is that I never feel deprived. I think about food so much less. I worry about food so much less. This is the food freedom I'd been searching for all my life. I used to weigh myself every day.

With my new approach, I felt it was important to weigh myself less often-once a month at the most. Three months later, I stepped on the scale with my eyes closed. I finally opened them and was shocked to see I'd lost 10 pounds.

I couldn't believe it. Eating the foods I really wanted-even if they were small amounts-each and every day helped me feel satisfied and eat less overall.

Now, I'm even able to keep some highly tempting foods in the house that I wouldn't have dared to before. So many people struggle to lose weight-but why does it have to be a struggle?