I have a problem with sweets. Ice cream, chocolate, candy, really anything that has a high sugar content and I’m in. 

I’m not picky either. There aren’t many sweets that I don’t like. 

During the day it’s easy for me to resist, I’m like a steel fortress of resolve. But after dinner I’m constantly looking for something to satisfy my sweet tooth. 

I think my daughter might have the same affliction too. The marshmallows pictured above are hers.  I did buy them though, so maybe I’m enabling her. 

Either way it’s taken me a very long time to figure out how to eat sweets and not completely sabotage my health goals. 

I’ve tried to completely abstain which just results in a binge after a few weeks. 

I’ve tried to limit them strictly to the weekends, which was moderately more successful than abstinence. 

And I’ve tried a lot of other approaches in between. Most of which have failed. 

So I’ve learned that I have to eat sweets regularly to not binge and blow my goals. Probably every other day I’ll have a bit of ice cream, or steal a few of my daughters marshmallows (don’t tell her). 

And this works for me, but it may not work for you. You see you’ll need to try and fail at a few strategies as well before you figure out what works for you. 

The idea of failing fast can be helpful here. Figuring this out has been a pretty lengthy process for me, quite a few years, but I’m pretty slow to come to realizations. If you don’t believe me ask my wife. 

However, if I could have realized faster that I just need to eat sweets more often it would have caused me less headaches and frustration. I should have tried these strategies over a few weeks and then moved on to another after they were unsuccessful.

Instead I’d continue to try and shove the round peg into the square hole and get more and more frustrated when I didn’t succeed. 

Now even inside my strategy of eating sweets a few times a week I’ve had to adjust. A pint of Ben and Jerrys and the entire days worth of calories they contain doesn’t support my goals of staying lean. 

So I have to pay attention to the calorie content of my sweets and make sure they fit into my larger goal. I’ve found products like Halo Top ice cream to be a good alternative. A low calorie ice cream that actually tastes good and satisfies my sweet tooth. 

Or by stealing just a few of my daughters marshmallows I’m only eating an extra 100-200 calories and can still stay on track. 

And there are certain foods that are really hard for me to resist so I have to be even more mindful if they’re in the house. 

My strategy of eating sweets regularly flies in the face of a lot of conventional wisdom when it comes to health, fitness, or weight loss. But who likes conventional wisdom anyway.