Karen G wrote in message . ..

What do you all do about dessert--frequency, variety, etc?

I am a big believer in dessert. I think it is important to an overall
diet, and can prevent snacking later. But that is all with the caveat
of *if* it is a healtful dessert, with a substantial protein and/or
fiber component. Every night for dinner we either have pudding
(homemade from skim milk), fruit pie (I love the prune plums that are
in season right now), cheesecake (generally made from tofu), or
custard.

When I bake a fruit pie, I use my own pie dough, and roll it very
thin, just enough to keep the fruit from sticking to the bottom of the
pan. I sometimes do a double-crust pie, but more often top it with a
low-fat oatmeal crisp.

We also have homemade cookies around most of the time, and they are
baked with less fat (substitute yogurt or applesauce, depending on the
recipe), made of part whole-wheat flour, with less sugar. But I tend
not to use cookies so much for dessert for formal meals--they are for
lunches, and our girls often have cookies for afternoon snack, with
milk.

I don't think eating commercially prepared desserts would have the
same effect on our bodies or waistlines, though.

We generally always have had dessert after dinner most nights, but I
really became fanatical about it about a month ago, when I decided I
really should lose 5 pounds. You can laugh if you want, but I have
always found those last 5 pounds to be the most difficult and stubborn
to let go

So the big changes I made were (1) I got religious about dessert every
night for dinner and (2) I stopped using fat-free salad dressings. As
a result, I've lost a pound a week for the last four weeks.

My children think this is a great deal of fun. "How can you lose
weight by eating dessert?" one asked.

It does take some time to bake the pies, etc., but I think it is very
much worth it. If I eat a reasonable dinner, and fruit pie with
low-fat ice cream, then I don't even think about food the rest of the
night. I don't feel full, but I don't feel hungry because the fiber
of the fruit and the protein from the ice cream tend to stabilize my
blood sugar.

Colleen Kay Porter