Did you know that having a dessert or sweet treat every once in a while actually increases your chances to lose weight successfully? Why? Because if you allow yourself this bit of luxury you can’t do without, you are much less likely to cheat on your diet and then exaggerate it. After all, if you can eat what you want, there’s no need for cheating.

The secret of enjoying desserts when you want to lose weight is to choose low calorie desserts. And fortunately, with some simple tricks you can create low calorie desserts that don’t really taste like boring low calorie food.

There are four ways of reducing calories in your dessert:

• reducing the amount of fat
• reducing the amount of sugar
• reducing the amount of other simple carbohydrates
• reducing portion sizes

Reducing fat
Most fat in your desserts comes in form of butter or dairy products like cream, milk, cream cheese and mascarpone. You can reduce fat very easily without losing much taste.

• Replace butter with a good margarine. That’s not only less fat but also healthier fat. In many cake or muffin recipes you could even use canola oil instead.
• If cream is not used beaten, you can use butter milk or coconut milk instead. They contain much less fat and also taste great.
• Use low fat milk instead of full cream milk. It works just as well and you will barely notice the difference. Plus, you cut calories coming from milk to about one third. Buttermilk can replace milk in shakes and smoothies.
• Use low fat smooth cottage cheese or ricotta in place of cream cheese or mascarpone. Your dessert will have significantly less calories and also be less heavy.
• Buy low fat ice cream. Try to find one that is not too high in sugar. Alternately, you can make your own ice cream with low fat milk and artificial sweeteners.

Reducing sugar
This is a bit more tricky but still possible. In many recipes you can simply reduce the amount of sugar. If you then feel it’s not sweet enough, you have several options:

• You can use artificial sweeteners like Splenda or Aspartame. They are very sweet (so a little will do) but contain almost no calories.
• You can also use natural sweeteners like honey, fructose or maple syrup. They contain fewer calories than sugar, and since they are much sweeter you need less. But remember that they still do contain calories. Natural sweeteners are a great option if you just want to sweeten something a little. But if you want to use a large amount, then rather don’t go this route.
• Add naturally sweet foods like fresh or dried fruit to your dessert. This will reduce your need for additional sugar and at the same time provide you with many important vitamins and fiber.

Reducing other simple carbohydrates
Of all carbohydrates, sugar is the one that causes most damage. But there are other simple carbohydrates that have a quite similar effect on our body. Refined products like white flour also contain simple carbohydrates. These are stored as fat when you eat too many of them, so you should reduce these foods as well when you want to lose weight.

The best way to do this is to swap white flour with whole grain flour. You can completely replace it or mix the two, depending on how much you need or want to reduce calories. The good thing about a whole grain muffin is that it also fills you quicker and better than one made of white flour. So you will eat less.

Reducing portion sizes
One of the best and most effective ways of reducing calories is certainly simply eating less. I’m not saying you should have tiny portions. You don’t really need five scoops of ice-cream, two would also do. Rather stick to smaller portions and enjoy them without having to worry too much about the calories.

First, decide to learn the recipe. Go to Yahoo, Google or MSN or any other search engine. Search for free download of Gourmet Cheesecake Recipes. The site that opens up will give you recipes for different varieties of cheesecake. To provoke your interest, here are a few mouthwatering cheesecake varieties – Chocolate Peanut butter, vanilla cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, Bailey’s marbled variety, and several others.

You will find lot more of assortment for dinner for any evening. Suppose you decide to prepare something like crock pot lasagna, get them started in the morning. When you return home from work in the evening you have your dinner ready. These are only a few things to mention. Your job will never end if you start listing all the variations.

Once you have an inclination to get to the kitchen counter and dip your fingers into the ingredients there, you can find whatever recipe you want from many sources – websites, blogs, friends, and any other source that you may have access. When you want to do it, your meals and desserts will become sumptuous, tasty and highly satiating.

Any recipe or information you want, just use the internet or public libraries and everything seems so easy like they are on your finger tips. Start preparing a list of your most favorite recipes.

As new sugar alternatives have hit the market however, there have been more praises for sugar free desserts. People are not as able to even tell the difference between a regular dessert with sugar and a dessert with a sugar alternative. The companies are starting to get smarter about their products. They realize they have to create products that taste almost exactly like what the traditional products taste like, or no one will buy them.

The great thing about this all is that now you can enjoy dessert more often without feeling guilty about it at all. Of course, you have to realize that many of the sugar free desserts should not be consumed daily, if you want to stick to your diet. But, all in all, you can sneak that extra cookie or piece of cake without worry when you are doing it the sugar free way.

So instead of avoiding the sugar free desserts at all costs in the stores be sure to try one now and then. Your family doesn’t even have to know that your delicious cookies were made with a sugar alternative. You can take better care of their health without having to make them sacrifice what they love to eat, which can make you both feel great!