Low carb desserts can be your ticket to following Atkins, South Beach, Caveman or other low-carb diets without having to give up your favorite foods. Many overweight people sabotage their own diet efforts because they think: “How can I enjoy eating delicious food and still be on a diet? If it tastes good, then it really has to be bad for me, so how can I lose weight?”
Here is one secret: Dieting is NOT about giving up the flavors and tastes of you favorite foods – it is about finding and learning to appreciate NEW flavors and foods. For true epicureans, food is an adventure. YOU can become a diet food epicurean!
Considering low carb desserts, today there are many substitutes that you can use to make sweet treats that taste just as good as the real deal. One of my favorite “diet” phrases has been, “If you need to eat a cookie, eat a cookie!” That was because low carb, low calorie, low fat – low ANYTHING – always meant the same thing: LOW FLAVOR! If you eat something that has no taste, you are tempted to eat more and more just like a stranded sailor who gives in to the temptation and drinks seawater. You are not satisfied with what you eat and so you eat more in an attempt to be fulfilled and end up eating more calories, fat, carbs, etc. than if you had simply gone ahead and eaten a real cookie.
But today, the low carb replacements are just as good as the real treat, well, if you can go for something that doesn’t require flour. Substituting flour is still a bit dicey, but getting better every day. It certainly is back to the “old” days when diet soft drinks tasted like battery acid – and started your car just as well!
Nowadays, the artificial sugars can be just as good as the authentic stuff, making for delicious gelatin, pudding, ice cream and other scrumptious and satisfying low carb desserts.
As for regular meals, there are a number of no-carbo, no-cal spices that can turn even the most blandest foods into a taste sensation. Chicken and fish are typical low-carb proteins that can be dressed up with blackening seasoning, Italian spices, Mexican spices or any other spices. Even low-carb salad dressings can bring punch to your taste buds.
If you are allowing yourself a certain number of carbs per day, there ARE a few low-carb whole wheat breads that DON’T taste like cardboard! They can add the fiber you need in your diet. And you can even try very thinly sliced whole wheat bread, or low-carb wraps.
And here’s a fantastically, amazingly great thing about low-carbo dieting – butter and mayo and cheeses are totally allowed! So is mustard and eggs – and who doesn’t love deviled eggs?
But nowadays, the low carb desserts are really headliners. I got to where I NEEDED low carb by enjoying a nice big bowl of ice cream while watching Saturday Night Live on Saturdays, and that soon expanded to late night shows during the week.
Now, I get just as much flavor and enjoyment by doing this: I coat the bottom of a big cereal bowl with a low-carb strawberry dessert topping, put in SIX cups of no-carb, 10-calorie Sugar-Free Jell-O (that’s 60 calories and NO carbs, people!) and then piling on some no-carb heavy whipped cream sweetened with Splenda! It is BOUNTIFUL and it is TASTY and it is SATISFYING… but best of all, it is maybe 125 to 150 calories tops and less that 5 grams of carb! These days, I can honestly say: “If you need to eat a cookie, instead eat a low carb dessert!”