Should I eat that Pie?

Sometimes you need a treat, for example holidays or birthdays. Here are my rules for enjoying the occasional treat:

• Try to make it a homemade treat. Yes spending that hour making that pie will help you understand just how much sugar and butter goes into a pie. Just maybe you might eat less. Your homemade pie will not contain things like high floccose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. Plus it will taste better.
• Do not use a mixture to make your dessert. Make it by hand, you can burn a few calories working the batter by hand.
• Make a plan to share your treat. After all you only wanted a piece of pie, not a whole pie. Volunteer to bring dessert to potluck, invite friends over, or take the leftovers to work the next day to share. What ever you do not eat the whole thing yourself.
• Make it fruit or vegetable based dessert. There are more nurturance and fiber in carrot cake than pound cake.
• If you must go chocolate, use dark chocolate inside of milk chocolate. Fewer calories and more chocolate; which some studies have shown to be good for you.