Daily Dessert

Why eating dessert every day is maybe one of the healthiest things you can do to repair your relationship with food and your body

You have a separate stomach for dessert. Hear me out– this is not the most scientifically sound thing I have ever said, and I stand by it. I should clarify that while you do not truly have a separate receptacle for dessert, you do not need to have “room” in your stomach for dessert. Before you close this tab or come for me with a pitchfork, just try and hear me out.

If you finish your meal and you still feel hungry, your meal is not complete. In the most simple terms, the goal of eating is to get your body adequate energy. Your body then communicates that this goal is met by sending fullness cues. (I won’t get into it here, but just know that these cues are regulated by hormones in the body). If you avoid eating until fullness because you anticipate that you might have dessert, you could risk sending the message to your body that you can only have dessert when you aren’t full. Remember– intuitive eating is not just about eating when you are hungry and stopping the moment you sense fullness. There is more nuance to our choices behind food, and there are so many other reasons that we eat, such as taste preference, social events, scheduling, etc. It is natural to not want to feel overly full, and at the same time, it is natural to get to a place of overfullness from time to time. The more permission you give yourself to truly sense your fullness, the more capable you become in responding to your body and its cues in the future. If we try to eat less at the main meal in anticipation of dessert, we are only giving more power to that sparkly food and are more likely to eat past a point of true satisfaction or comfortable fullness.

I would encourage you to remember that we are never focused on subtracting or taking things away, but rather adding to find enjoyment and satisfaction. Dessert is a great example of this. Dessert is in addition to a meal, not in place of it! Check in with yourself. How often are you “saving space” for dessert out of fear of eating “too much” if you finish a meal and then include dessert? How often is this based on the thought process of what an acceptable amount of food is vs what might feel good in your body?

Food is meant to be fun. Our bodies are not calculators. We are not robots and we do not eat the exact same every day 

Tasting the Forbidden Fruit

Maybe at some point in your life you were told, or you overheard somebody say that dessert was unnecessary. Or maybe nobody said it to you, and you heard people call deserts “indulgent” or you saw the marketing for devil’s food cake and that was enough to convince you. We live in a society that labels foods (good, bad, “sinful”, healthy, unhealthy, clean, etc.), and no matter where you are in your journey of making peace with food, it can be hard to sometimes see the rest of the world look at food and dessert as a moral wrongdoing. These labels give power to food, making us feel like we are therefore either being “good” or “bad” based on our food choices. It creates a tug of war with food and ourselves, and puts certain foods on a glittery pedestal (lets say for instance, brownies), making them so much more enticing and attractive in our minds the more we try to white-knuckle and restrain ourselves around them. Restraint can eventually backfire when we finally “give in”, feel out of control and overdo it, and vow to be “good” again (until the cycle repeats itself). This is the forbidden fruit effect.

So here is your permission slip: 

You are allowed to have dessert. Every day. In any quantity you want or need to feel satisfied. You are allowed to (and even encouraged to) enjoy your food and experience pleasurable eating.

Where did your mind go when you read that? What dessert did you think of? Maybe it was a drippy ice cream cone in the summer, or maybe it was your family’s chocolate cake recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation. Or, maybe it was the swiss cake rolls you ate after school during childhood. Or maybe the Oreos you remember peeling apart with friends or dipping a warm cookie into a glass of cold milk. Or maybe it is something you have never tried before– that baked good that you’ve been eyeing at your neighborhood coffee shop, or the slice of cake that everyone is raving about from your favorite restaurant. You have permission to eat it, no matter what the food bully in your mind says.

And in case you were wondering, yes I eat dessert every day as a dietitian. Sometimes more than once a day. Sometimes in small quantities, sometimes in larger quantities. There are no rules!

Habituation

When you allow yourself permission to eat something previously deemed off-limits freely, the novelty eventually wears off. It goes from being a special, alluring treat that you feel out of control excited about, and becomes something that you enjoy and are able to move on from when you feel satisfied, or even turn down if you aren’t in the mood for it. The more you eat this item, the more comfortable you are including it in your day to day routine. Eventually, you might notice that you don’t always want this item. If you are restricting, it is natural to feel like you cannot say no to something you enjoy because you don’t know when you’ll have the opportunity to eat this item again. When you know that you can eat something any time, you are better able to check in with your body and decide if it sounds good in the moment. If it doesn’t, you know you can always eat this item when it does sound good next time its around. Eventually, the compulsive urge to eat it because its there and you don’t know when you’ll have access to it again wears off, your mind knowing that scarcity is not around the corner.

I have had multiple clients tell me that after granting themselves unconditional permission to eat some of their forbidden or fear foods, they’ve been shocked to be able to identify when they are or aren’t in the mood for them. Or when after having a few bites, they can sense that they feel satisfied and don’t feel the previous urge to eat to a place of feeling sick.

Let’s not underestimate the power of permission. When you go into a situation where you do not think you are doing something wrong, you are calmer and kinder to yourself. The more you repeat “I do not need to do anything to earn or deserve this food,” the more likely you are to believe it. Sometimes action needs to come before a change in beliefs. The more you do this, the more you say this, the more true it will become. 

What about my health?

I’m glad you asked. Your health is absolutely my priority. A study published in 2020 found no evidence between development of diabetes and total sugar intake. This study was based on following approximately 4300 participants over the course of two decades. There was also a non-statistically significant finding that reflected a U-shaped trend reflecting that people who ate some added sugar every day had the lowest risk of developing diabetes in comparison to people who ate no added sugar or “large” amounts of added sugar. While we cannot necessarily read into this as it was not deemed statistically significant, and there could be confounding variables, I feel as though it is important to acknowledge in this space as it challenges many of our initial expectations about the relationship between sugar consumption and health. Another study in 2020 found that people with very limited added sugar, think highly-restrictive intake, had increased risk of developing abnormalities in cardiovascular health. So the next time the thought of restriction in pursuit of “health” pops into your mind, consider this. We need to take into account the big picture, not a zoomed-in lens on any singular food, food group or even meal.

When we think of health, we also need to consider the impacts of restriction on mental health. Multiple studies have found improved psychological health markers (think: improved self-esteem, body acceptance, and decreased depression) in participants who eat intuitively vs restrictively. While some of these markers can improve in the short-term with diets that result in weight loss, most studies find that when a diet stops and potential weight regain occurs, these benefits disappear and potentially worsen. With intuitive eating, studies find that changes in the way a person sees themselves and takes care of themselves is more sustainable as it is based on an attitude shift in place of visual changes.

Still not sure? Think about this example: You’re at dinner for a friend’s birthday and at the end of the meal, out comes a big ole birthday cake. Use your imagination here– what’s your favorite type of cake? Got it? That’s what this cake is. Now, everyone around you is eating a slice and you are sitting there drinking a glass of water, or maybe eating the slice you took crumb by crumb to slow yourself down with the plan to not finish the slice…Where is your attention at this point? Is it on your friend and their birthday? Is it on the conversation? Or, I might bet, it’s on the slice of cake and your body. Ask yourself– Is that healthy? Is being so focused on what you’re eating that you are only partially present for an important moment the way you want to live your life, or the way you would want a friend or child to live their lives?

While all of this is easier said than done, it does not mean that you cannot do it. It just means that it will take time, practice, and patience. You know what helps you have more patience? Being adequately nourished ;) And having a team that is ready to support the ups and downs of this work. You do not need to do this alone.

Sources:

Van Dyke N, Drinkwater EJ. Relationships between intuitive eating and health indicators: literature review. Public Health Nutr. 2014 Aug;17(8):1757-66. doi: 10.1017/S1368980013002139. Epub 2013 Aug 21. PMID: 23962472; PMCID: PMC10282369.

Ramne S, Drake I, Ericson U, Nilsson J, Orho-Melander M, Engström G, Sonestedt E. Identification of Inflammatory and Disease-Associated Plasma Proteins that Associate with Intake of Added Sugar and Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Their Role in Type 2 Diabetes Risk. Nutrients. 2020 Oct 14;12(10):3129. doi: 10.3390/nu12103129. PMID: 33066363; PMCID: PMC7602152.

Janzi S, Ramne S, González-Padilla E, Johnson L, Sonestedt E. Associations Between Added Sugar Intake and Risk of Four Different Cardiovascular Diseases in a Swedish Population-Based Prospective Cohort Study. Front Nutr. 2020 Dec 23;7:603653. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2020.603653. PMID: 33425973; PMCID: PMC7786303.

Christy Harrison’s Food Psych Podcast Episode 284: Sugar and Your Health