Notes on Nutrition: How to satisfy your after-dinner sweet tooth

What if there could be a way to have your cake and eat it too? You can both savor something sweet and feel your best by following a few key tips. By doing so, you’ll see how you can skip the food guilt and satisfy your hunger in the evenings. It turns out there is an optimal time during the day to enjoy your dessert for increased energy, improved blood sugar control and better sleep.

One may wonder if it would be best to avoid sweets all together. However, we know restrictive diets statistically are likely to fail or even backfire. When we restrict, the brain tends to focus more on wanting what is put off limits.

Dietitians believe food should be enjoyed and savored and that all foods can fit on our plates — including sweets. We want to promote eating without guilt. We believe in both eating for health and enjoyment. We also know there are a few tips and tricks for the most optimal timing of sweets that can be beneficial for health. For many this may be a more realistic meet-in-the-middle approach.

So, when is the best time to eat sweets? Research has found that there is actually an optimal time to eat dessert. The best time to eat something sweet is right after a balanced lunch or dinner after you’ve already eaten fiber from vegetables and adequate protein and fats. The fiber, protein and fat in your stomach will slow down digestion and prevent the sweet food from spiking your blood sugar as high as it would on an empty stomach. Plus, since you know you can still have sweets, you won’t feel restricted. So when a craving is calling, it is easy to set aside the sweet to enjoy after your next balanced meal.

If you are used to snacking before bed, try moving up that snack to fall directly after dinner instead.

Snacking before bed is super common, especially since it can be a time when cravings kick in. But this isn’t ideal since eating something sweet right before bed is more likely to spike blood sugar.

Between the blood sugar spike and your digestive track having to work overnight, eating before bed can disrupt sleep. One symptom of a blood sugar spike followed by a crash during the night is waking up sweaty and with a pounding heart. To avoid this, try the following tips.

To set yourself up to be satisfied with one portion of something sweet, make half your dinner plate vegetables. Try doubling up on vegetables at the start of your meal. Perhaps enjoy both a salad and a cooked vegetable, then move onto the protein on your plate, and end the meal with your sweet food as dessert. The fiber from the vegetables and the protein from your meal will help provide satiety, so you won’t even have to think much about portion control of the dessert. You will be surprised to see how satisfied you feel with a few bites of something sweet at the end of a balanced meal. This will come more intuitively if you are first filling up on vegetables and protein.

With an adequate-sized balanced dinner, you may be surprised to find you do not need a snack before bed. However, if you notice yourself feeling hungry later at night, try to choose a more protein-rich snack rather than something sweet. Ideas include a handful of nuts, a string cheese, some Greek yogurt, peanut butter and celery, a protein shake, a glass of water or a cup of tea.

The goal is to help you fall asleep easily without hunger pains but while also avoiding a stomach that is feeling too full. Notice if you are experiencing hunger versus reaching for something out of habit or to cope with emotions like stress, boredom or feelings of sadness.

One of the most common comments from customers is they feel extreme hunger and cravings in the evening if they go all day without eating much. Eating a balanced breakfast and a balanced lunch can help you be more in control of your cravings later in the day. For breakfast, choose something low in sugar with a good source of protein. Try to find something that keeps you satisfied for about four hours. By avoiding sugar and staying balanced at breakfast, you will then be able to enjoy dessert later in the day, such as after dinner, and stay more balanced then too.

For a filling breakfast, try our pick of the month: Catalina Crunch cereal with Ripple Plant-Based Milk.

Catalina Crunch cereal has 0 grams of sugar, 11 grams of protein and 9 grams of fiber, making it a better choice for stabilizing blood sugars. It is made with a plant-based blend of pea protein, potato fiber, corn fiber and chicory root fiber, It is sweetened with natural sweeteners allulose and stevia.

Stephanie Vande Brake is a registered dietitian at Hy-Vee.