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If you’re striving to lose weight you may think desserts are strictly off limits. But the truth couldn’t be the opposite: a little sweetness in your life can actually help you lose weight.
When you deprive yourself of all of the foods you want it becomes that much more difficult to stay on track working toward your weight loss goals. But choosing the right kind of dessert — like the one dessert you can eat every day without worrying about weight loss, according to nutritionists — gives you an excuse to indulge without stressing about calories.
Dark Chocolate
They key to choosing sweet treats that will satisfy your craving for dessert without compromising your weight loss plan is to stick to low-sugar foods that won’t spike your insulin levels, send you crashing an hour later, and send you on a wild goose chase in search of more sweet desserts.
Dark chocolate is more bitter than its milk chocolate cousin, but also low in sugar and high in antioxidant content that can fight cell-damaging free radicals and keep your body healthy.
“When you have too many free radicals in your body, they start to attack your cells, and that can lead, over time, to low-grade inflammation and to some diseases — cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s,” Joy DuBost, PhD, RD, an American Dietetic Association spokeswoman, told Everyday Health.
There are numerous benefits associated with dark chocolate that include preventing heart disease, raising your levels of good cholesterol, and lowering your blood pressure.
By swapping milk chocolate for dark chocolate in recipes, you’ll save calories, fat, and carbs, while gaining antioxidants and nutrients like magnesium and iron.
When you’re shopping around for dark chocolate, pay close attention to its cacao percentage, which should be listed on the label. A percentage of 65 percent or higher is considered bittersweet dark chocolate (which just gets more bitter the higher its cacao content). The higher your cacao percentage, the more healthy flavanols it will contain.
Enjoying a small piece of dark chocolate each day is a healthy way to indulge your sweet tooth without going overboard.
But if you’re searching for a guilt-free dessert recipe to whip up, this Dark Chocolate Pudding (which contains 171 calories per serving) can’t be beat.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
Arrowroot powder
Unsweetened soy milk
Organic evaporated cane juice
Unsweetened cocoa powder
Pure vanilla extract
Dark chocolate chips
