5 Delicious Desserts to Fit Into Any Diet

I don't know about you, but I LIVE for desserts! It is the best part of the meal. How can you have your cake and eat it too? Without ruining your diet? Here are 5 great ways to eat yummy, but healthy desserts. The chocolate is my favorite of course. No matter what sort of diet you’re on, sometimes you feel the need to have something sweet to eat. But everyone knows that too much dessert can sabotage your efforts to lose weight or to maintain a healthy body weight, because dessert recipes often have a lot of fat and sugar. However, there are treats that don’t require consuming hundreds of empty calories. Here are some of the best diet desserts around.

1. Dark Chocolate

Chocolate frequently gets a bad rap, but there are actually a number of bona fide health benefits to it. Dark chocolate contains potent antioxidants called flavonoids that can help to lower blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels, combat heart disease and even protect your skin from sun damage. So when you’re in the mood for easy diet desserts, you might try breaking out a small serving of gourmet dark chocolate. A number of retailers sell high end dark chocolate that has exciting and healthy ingredients added to bring out the chocolate’s taste. These ingredients vary from the simple (dried fruits and nuts) to the elegant and understated (sea salt) to the adventurous (chili extract). Although dark chocolate can be very good for you in small quantities, it still is relatively calorie rich. Don’t eat too much. Even when you’re dealing with diet desserts, moderation is important.

2. Fruit

Some people call fruit nature’s candy, and there are some times when all your sweet tooth really wants is a crisp and juicy apple, a bowl of delicious blueberries, or a fresh mango. Fruit is high in fiber, contains important vitamins, and is far lower in calories than almost every other kind of dessert. So when you get a craving for dessert, try enjoying a piece of fruit and seeing if that satisfies you. But even when a piece of fruit on its own doesn’t sound like much of a dessert, there are a lot of easy dessert recipes that are really quite healthy that include fruit. Try this recipe for banana with dark chocolate-honey sauce from Fitness Magazine. Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp dark chocolate, chopped
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 tsp unsalted butter
• Small pinch of salt
• 1 small banana
• 1 tsp toasted walnuts, chopped

Directions: Peel the banana and cut it into small slices. Combine the dark chocolate, honey, butter and salt, and melt it either in a microwave or a double boiler. Stir the sauce frequently as it melts. Sprinkle your banana with the walnuts and drizzle some of the sauce over the top.

3. Banana Ice Cream

If you have a high-powered blender or a good food processor, you have the ability to make some of the very best diet dessert recipes.

• All you have to do is cut bananas small and freeze them.
• Then, process them in your blender or food processor until smooth, like soft serve ice cream. If you’d like, you can eat it just like this.
• Or, you can place it back in the freezer in an airtight container.
• If you allow it to freeze again, it will firm up like regular ice cream.

Because it only takes one ingredient, banana ice cream definitely deserves a place on the list of easy dessert recipes. To spruce up the flavor, you can try to adding toppings like nuts, dark chocolate shavings or berries. You can also try adding in other ingredients to the ice cream itself (just don’t add too much, as the bananas are what give that deliciously creamy ice cream texture). You can try adding small amounts of frozen berries, nuts, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, a bit of honey, or even a spoonful of peanut butter.

4. Paleo Coconut-Milk Smoothie

If you’re eating paleo, it can definitely be hard to find dessert recipes that fit with your dietary requirements. The following smoothie is great for people eating paleo, but it’s delicious for anybody. Plus, it’s easy. Ingredients:

• 1 cup of coconut milk
• 1 sliced frozen banana
• 2 cups of frozen strawberries
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Instructions: Blend all ingredients in your blender until all lumps have disappeared.

5. Homemade Frozen Yogurt

When you get frozen yogurt out on the town, there’s no guarantee what’s in it. But when you make it yourself at home, you can enjoy diet desserts that are healthy, cheap and easy. Try this five-minute strawberry yogurt recipe from Just a Taste. Ingredients:

• 4 cups frozen strawberries
• 3 tbsp agave nectar or honey
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (non-fat or full fat)
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Instructions: Add all ingredients to a food processor and blend until it’s smooth. It should take about five minutes. Either serve your yogurt now, or place it in an airtight container and freeze for later use. Sources:

• 3 Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate
• Our Favorite Guilt-Free Ways to Eat Chocolate
• How To Make Creamy Ice Cream with Just One Ingredient!
• PALEO STRAWBERRY COCONUT SMOOTHIE
• 5-Minute Healthy Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

Reposted from: http://www.fitnessrepublic.com/nutrition/healthy_eating/-5-delicious-desserts-to-fit-into-any-diet.html Feel free to follow me on my Facebook page or check out more from me on my blog at www.zuzanaorbodyrockaddict.blogspot.com