Holiday Cookie Recipes for Dieters

Let's face it--the winter holidays season in the United States is all music, decorations and food. The good stuff: honey-glazed ham, candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cookies, cakes, pies, candy and fudge! It's a dieter's nightmare, especially dieters like me who just can't do without sweet treats. Well, it used to be.

Thanks to the vigilance of people who love sweets and healthy eating, we can have our (diet) cake and eat it, too. Here are some great cookie and treat recipes I have stumbled upon and tested in preparation for a healthier holiday season and beyond. Enjoy.

The 2-Ingredient Cookie
Ever since I tried this recipe a couple months ago, I make it at least once a week. It's so healthy, in fact, that I sometimes make them for breakfast. Yeah, cookies for breakfast. As a dieter, did you ever think you could have cookies for breakfast? You can find this cookie all over the Internet, but The Burlap Bag has a really great photo and easy instructions for making about a dozen cookies. You can optionally add in raisins, nuts, or other fixins'. I love them with raisins, but my husband wasn't happy until I threw in some white chocolate chips to sweeten them up. My kids love them either way.

By adding in about 50 raisins, you're looking at a recipe that only has about 42 calories and half a gram of fat per cookie. Each has about 9 grams of carbohydrates and 2.8 grams of fiber, so they're great for people with diabetes, too. (Source: MyFitnessPal Recipe Box)

Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookies
Six Sisters' Stuff offers a great Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookie that, in the end, tastes like a chocolate-peanut butter version of the 2-Ingredient Cookie above. It's all the healthy goodness that will satisfy any chocolate craving. Making about 18 cookies, each cookie is about 80 calories with only 2 grams of fat and 11 grams of carbohydrates. These values, derived from the MyFitnessPal Recipe Box, differ from those posted on the Six Sisters' Stuff blog, because they divvy this recipe up into 30 cookies. It's up to you how you want to make them.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookie
If you like peanut butter cookies, but need to cut out enriched flour for whatever reason, Celebrating Family has a delicious recipe for Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. This recipe yielded about 18 cookies for me and I ate probably half of the batch. If you like peanut butter cookies, try not to make these more than once a month. You're looking at 129 calories, 7 grams of fat and 14 grams of carbohydrates per cookie.

You can reduce calories, fat and carbohydrates a bit by swapping out the egg for a mashed banana. Be aware, however, that you will taste the banana, so you won't get that traditional peanut butter cookie taste. You can also swap out the sugar and use Splenda to cut out some carbs, but this version was a bit crumbly and dry. It just depends on what is worth it to you. Just swapping in Splenda reduces the calories to 89, fat to 7 grams and carbs to 4 grams per cookie. (Source: MyFitnessPal Recipe Box)

Flourless Brownies
Did I mention that I'm a chocoholic? Well, I am, and I can down and entire batch of brownies. Seriously. I've done it. Of course, now that I'm eating healthier and exercising to lose weight, I can't do those sorts of things anymore. So, I am so excited to have stumbled upon Homemade Mommy's Flourless Brownies recipe.

These brownies are really good. And you know what? I didn't even let them sit for the required 5 hours. It was more like a torturous half hour before I started cutting in. I made my brownies with honey instead of syrup because that's the sweetener I have around my house, but I have a feeling you'll like these treats no matter which sweetener you choose.
Making about eight brownies, this recipe is great for after-dinner family desserts. Each brownie is 155 calories, 5 grams of fat and 32 grams of carbohydrates. (Source: MyFitnessPal Recipe Box)

How to Tighten Loose Abdominal Skin

That unsightly, sagging abdominal skin may keep you from fully appreciating the fact that you have reached your ideal weight. Whether you've lost weight too quickly or are dealing with a postpartum pooch, you may be wondering if your stomach will ever be beach worthy. The answer has a lot to do with genetics and time, but there are a few tips and tricks you can use to tighten that loose abdominal skin.

Is It Fat or Skin?
It's important to first confirm that you're dealing with actual excess skin and not additional, soft body fat. Mark Sisson, fitness author and founder of Primal Nutrition, believes that most cases of loose skin are really just stubborn patches of residual body fat. He states that if the loose skin is more than a few millimeters, this is likely this case. If you can grab a fistful of loose skin, you're dealing with body fat. In this case, you need to keep working at reducing your body fat percentage with a combination of healthy eating and exercise.

Give It Some Time
If you really are dealing with excess skin, give your body some time to return to its former shape. Postpartum women should consider that it took almost 10 months for their stomachs to stretch during pregnancy, so the prospect of returning to normal in a few weeks may be unrealistic. Likewise, anyone concerned with loose abdominal skin should consider how long their skin was stretched. Fitness and lifestyle coach Charlene Johnson says that it could take up to a year after losing weight for skin to tighten up.

Improve Elasticity of Your Skin
Your genetics play a major role in the elasticity of your skin, and this characteristic is the key to tightening loose skin. Keeping yourself hydrated and eating a healthy diet with an appropriate amount of protein can help your skin regain some elasticity. Also, skip sun tanning, harsh detergents and other skin irritants. You can also try a regiment of exfoliation and moisturizing to nourish your skin. Don't skip on stomach crunches and other abdominal exercises, which can help your skin flex and regain its shape.

Learn About Wraps and Other Treatments
If you're looking for a quick fix, some body wraps and other treatments may be able to help, however, these results are usually temporary. Body wraps, usually a 45- to 60-minute chemical treatment applied to the skin under a material wrapped taught around the midsection, reduces inches and tightens skin by pulling fluid out. Once the skin rehydrates, the inches and sag will return. Belly binding treatments, used for centuries for various medical reasons, take place over the course of weeks. During this treatment, a person can use a special wrap or girdle to hold skin in a position that allows it to shrink and reattach to muscle. If it works for you, this is a permanent fix.