(ThyBlackMan.com) Whether you’re trying to lose weight, avoid heartburn, or simply eat healthfully, you needn’t give up sweets. Just watch what and how much you eat.
But when you’re trying to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle, watching your dessert and sweet intake can be one of the biggest obstacles to your success. Eating low-sugar or low-fat desserts may not satisfy your fierce sweet tooth, and the result can be some very strong cravings for sugar and fattening desserts. Overindulging in these too often can result in weight gain and will sabotage your diet efforts.
The craving for sugar is one of the hardest to beat. Here are some healthy ways to indulge your sugar cravings, without blowing your diet.
1. Chocolate Dipped Fruit
Instead of gobbling down an entire chocolate bar when you get a sugar cravings, try some chocolate covered fruit. Fruit dipped in real melted chocolate can give you a taste of something sweet, along with vitamins and dietary fiber to help regulate blood sugar levels. For a lower calorie option, 
try dipping bananas, melon or apples into low calorie chocolate syrup. For an even more decadent treat, try dipping a marshmallow.
2. Yogurt
There’s more than one way to transform ordinary plain or flavored yogurt into a tasty sweet. Add honey or a splash of orange juice concentrate to plain yogurt to spice it up. Layer flavored yogurt, crunchy granola and berries in a glass for a healthy parfait. Blend yogurt and fruit together for a high protein, nutritious smoothie.
3. Baked Apples
Baked apples make a delicious dessert. Core your apples, then stuff them with raisins, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake whole, cored apples at 350 degrees For 15 minutes.
4. Fruit and Yogurt Popsicles
You can make your own all fruit popsicles by blending your favorite fruits and then freezing them in a popsicle mold. If you don’t have a popsicle mold, fill paper cups halfway with your blended fruit mixture and then add wooden craft sticks before freezing. You can also make frozen yogurt popsicles with the remains of your healthy fruit and yogurt smoothies, or purchase all fruit popsicles from any grocery shop.
5. Fruit Salad
Fruit salad is a great way to make ordinary fruit more interesting, since it offers an intriguing mix of tastes and textures. Add sugar free vanilla pudding and try more interesting fruits like kiwi, mandarin oranges, raspberries and cherries.
6. Dark Chocolate
Unlike milk chocolate and white chocolate, dark chocolate is high in antioxidants and can help prevent tooth decay, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression. Dark chocolate is still a high calorie food, so you shouldn’t eat a lot of it, but there is definitely a place for dark chocolate in a healthy diet. Have a square or two of dark chocolate each day to beat your sugar cravings.
7. Light Ice Cream Float
You can make a low calorie, healthy ice cream float from diet soda and light ice cream. Root beer goes well with vanilla ice cream, or you can try diet cherry cola and chocolate ice cream or diet cola and strawberry ice cream.
8. Applesauce
Applesauce, pear sauce and other fruit sauces are sweet, tasty and high in vitamins. They also contain high levels of dietary soluble fiber, which can regulate your blood sugar levels to control future sugar cravings.
9. Frozen Yogurt
Frozen yogurt is lower in calories than ice cream and offers protein and calcium. Use frozen yogurt as an ice cream substitute in any dessert that requires ice cream.
Written By Brittany Gatson
