The Testosterone Daily Dose Podcast   /     Should You Eat Dessert? The Amazingly Fat Truth

Good food is meant to be appreciated and enjoyed.  There is literally no diet that is worth it that will require you to completely abstain from eating any kind of dessert.  If anyone is telling you otherwise they are pulling one over on you.  The reason for those is that absolutes in diet or behavior create neurotic behavior.

One of the aspects of the fitness industry I despise the most is its tendency to separate types of food and exercise into good and bad groups.  Realistically there are no good or bad foods or good or bad exercises, it is all context based.   That being said, there is a certain context where indulging in more calorie dense foods, as deserts tend to be, may be more or less useful.

As with the discussion on cardio, what you need to keep are your goals.  If you goal is to get to 7% bodyfat and you are trying to work toward that by maintaining sub maintenance calories, adding a large amount of desert type foods to your diet is going to make it difficult to meet your calorie requirements while feeling satiated.

Conversely, if you are trying to gain weight and you are struggling to meet your daily calorie requirements it makes no sense to eschew foods that could potentially help you to meet you calorie or macro requirements.  The area that people run into problems most frequently with dessert is not paying attention to their calories when they are eating them.

If you are normally tracking calories or otherwise have a rough idea of the calorie requirements that are in the foods you are eating its important to stick to your system even when eating desserts.  To use a common example, if you are using MyFintessPal to track your foods normally, you would not give up tracking every time you eat a dessert.  If it is something you are making at home you would still figure out what is in the dessert.

This works especially well if this is something you make often.  You can weigh or measure the ingredients the first time making it and then simple go off your previous measurements next time you make the same thing.  Of course you would have to be careful to make sure you are not changing the quantities significantly if you do go this route.

Alternatively you can eat something that is packaged so that you know exactly what is in your dessert.  This makes it easier to get closer and closer to your calorie or macronutrient requirements over time.

When you are eating out or are otherwise unable to now exactly what is in the dessert you are eating, it at least pays to have a rough idea of what the calorie and macro levels are of some of the ingredients.  One of the most common scenarios that sabotages dieter’s success is hidden fat or oil in desserts.  This is really a problem with baked goods or fried desserts.

Who Knows what’s in this…..?

Most people who have never spent time cooking desserts or compulsively looking at the ingredients on wrappers are unaware of how many hidden calories are in the oil used in baked goods or friend food.  Luckily for most of the compulsive people who lure around the fitness community this is not an issue.  After picking up a Little Debbie’s wrapper or two you can see that there are way more calories in things like doughnuts then you would expect from the size and taste.

This discrepancy between the size and taste of a food and its calorie content has to do with the fats that are beaked into the bread or crust on some desserts.  This is not as much of an issue with candy or things like ice cream. However when you are talking about things like chocolate candy or cake where oils are cooked or baked into the dessert all bets are off.  in these instances it is best not to guess as you will probably be completely off.

Other considerations for desserts are the ratio of fat to carbohydrate and the timing of eating the dessert.  For some desserts it will be worth it to figure out whether or not it is more carbohydrate based or fat based.  The reason for this is that you only have so many calories you can eat in one day.  If you are someone that need a bunch more fat or a bunch more carbohydrate to function well and get the most out of your workouts, it might be worth trying to find a dessert that better matches your needs.

Finally, the timing of desserts can be an issue.  More calorie dense foods tend to make some people extremely sleepy.  If you have otherwise been on a strict diet, this becomes especially true.  Similar to how I recommend reserving at least some of your carbohydrates for night time, I would recommend reserving the majority of your dessert types foods for later.  If they don’t make you tired at all this is not a huge deal.  However, for the majority of people, dessert will make them relaxed and somewhat sedated.  This state obviously does not lend itself to getting work or other errands done.

Remember, food is meant to be enjoyed.  The above is just a bit of advice that is meant to help you enjoy dessert while still progressing toward your goals.  Out of the many things you have to be worried about on a day to day basis, dessert should not be one of them.  Overall maintain about 80+% of your diet from whole micronutrient rich plant and animal foods including starch, meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, fish ect…. Once and a while throw in a dessert that you like and is useful to your goals.  Don’t stress about the rest of the details if they are causing you to become anxious or neurotic about your food.  Overall, this is much more important then the details anyway.

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