Desserts and the Key to Maintaining Weight Loss

Satisfying the proverbial sweet tooth and losing weight or keeping off the pounds that you have already lost can be a daunting task. When you see the dessert, you want to eat it the whole thing and worry about the extra calories later. This method does not always work well when trying to keep the weight off. There are some desserts out that can help keep the weight off and satisfy your craving for sweets.

Fruit cobblers, yogurt mixtures, fruit pies, and low fat cakes are just a few. However, the key to maintaining your weight loss, having your cake and eating it to is in watching your portion size. You can always run into the problem of too much of a good thing. You want to look at the desserts calorie count and fat grams associated with the portion size before you begin eating the dessert. You must consider the calorie count associated with your diet and determine if you can have the entire portion size or if you need to eat just half of the portion to stay in line with your diet. If you dont have the will power to resist the whole portion of a dessert high in calories and fat, then fix the whole, appropriate portion size and throw away of the portion before you sit down to eat it. You can not eat a dessert that is not there.

now there are some healthy desserts with natural ingredients that you can eat the entire portion, satisfy your sweet tooth craving and stay on your diet. These delicious desserts can be prepared quickly and easily. Dont worry you dont have to be a master chef to do it.

For example, fruit pies are a delicious dessert that can be prepared in a manner that yields them low in calories and low in fat. You can begin by washing and draining your fresh fruit. Some fruits that make great pies are apples, peaches or berries. Cut up the fruit as necessary into bite-sized chunks or slices and put it in a bowl. You can add a sugar substitute to your taste or leave the fruit in its naturally sweet state. Then pour the fruit mixture into a pre-made pie crust thats in a foil pie pan. Be careful not to overfill the pie pan with the fruit mixture. Add one tablespoon of butter (if desired) cut into small pieces and drop the butter chunks through out the fruit mixture that is in the pie pan. Take another pie crust and put it on top. Cut slits in the top pie crust for ventilation. Bake the fruit pie in the oven at about 350 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes or until the pie crust is lightly brown. Let it cool and enjoy!

Yogurt shakes are also an enjoyable low calorie and low fat treat. You can take some low fat yogurt and blend it with your favorite fruit to make a yogurt shake. Or you can add your favorite nuts or add one or two low fat cookies to your yogurt, blend it, and make a crunchy, enjoyable cool treat.

So enjoy and indulge your sweet tooth with appropriately portioned, delicious, healthy desserts that are low in calories and low in fat while you keep the weight off.

Milton Whitley has been commercially baking and preparing products with natural ingredients and 0g trans fat for over 20 years. You can get more recipe ideas for natural, delicious desserts that will help you keep the weight off at http://www.miltonspiefillings.com/.

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How To Get Certified In Scuba Diving

The first two steps in getting certified in scuba diving is to make sure that you are a reasonably proficient swimmer and you get medical clearance from your doctor to take up the sport. As for the swimming, you dont have to master every type of stroke. Scuba certification only requires that you are able to swim about 200 yards using any stroke you want and to be able to float or tread on water for about 10 minutes. If you are in good general health and are comfortable in the water, then you should be able to scuba dive without any problems.

There are about 1,900 professional scuba dive centers in north america alone and your local ones should definitely be checked out. Most will run basic certification programs on a regular basis. These centers or shops should be listed in the yellow pages and you can also check with websites of some of the major scuba diving certification agencies such as PADI or NAUI as they will also have listings. Sometimes scuba diving courses are offered at universities too.

Make sure that the course you are interested in taking as well as its instructor are certified with one of the major scuba diving training agencies. This will ensure that you get proper, safe training for both the technical background knowledge and practical skills required for certification as a scuba diver. You also want to end up with an internationally recognized certification card if you want to go scuba diving at various locations around the world.

Some vacation resorts offer resort courses lasting a day or two which offer beginners some very basic training in order to try out scuba diving. These are not certification programs. full certification programs involve classroom work, exams, practical skills sessions at a pool and usually about four open water dives in the sea (lake or ocean). The duration of the classroom work and pool sessions vary from a very intensive weekend (with advance reading) to once a week over several weeks. The open water dives will usually take two more days. Dive centers located in the tropics also offer basic certification programs that last several days to a week. Although the intensive weekend programs are quite feasible, many feel that basic scuba diving courses spread out over a few weeks will help beginners learn the skills better. Scuba diving does involve new skills and to learn them all during one full weekend may be too much for some people.

As for which scuba diving certification training agency is the best, there isnt any one recognized organization that is better than another. PADI is the most popular in the world but not necessarily better than NAUI or SSI. NAUI course are often more technical in the classroom than those offered by PADI but both will adequately train you to be a scuba diver. The more important factor would be the individual instructor and your own effort during training/studying. In fact, many scuba diving instructors have certifications from several training agencies.

For people living in the more northern regions, there are a few possible routes to take in order to obtain certification. One can travel down south to the tropics and do the entire basic certification course down there in warm weather. However, this will take up a good portion of a vacation since reading, classroom, pool sessions and open water dives all must be done during that time period. A second option is to take the entire course including the open water dives back in home territory. This usually offers beginners the most time since courses can be spread out over a few weeks. However, the water up north is not as warm as in the tropics and the scuba diving could be seasonal. A third option is to take all the classroom and pool sessions back home and then go down south to do the open water dives in warm waters. Many people have taken this route. Your instructor back home will give you a referral letter to bring down to an instructor located down south who will oversee your open water dives. This is a good combination of taking ample time back home to practice the skills in the pool plus getting the classroom work out of the way followed by having nice warm water to dive in for the open water dives. One thing to be aware of if considering this option is to make sure that your travel to the tropics for your open water dives is not too delayed after finishing up with your pool sessions at home. If too much time has elapsed, one could easily forget the skills learned in the pool by the time a vacation comes along.

The underwater world has so much to offer and only a small percentage of the worlds population will ever have the privilege to see it in person rather than on television. Become one of these individuals who will have the honor of exploring the oceans by getting certified in scuba diving.

Clint Leung is a NAUI certified Master and Rescue Scuba Diver. He is also owner of Free Spirit Activewear http://www.FreeSpiritActivewear.com, an online retailer/designer specializing in premium quality scuba diving activewear. Also numerous articles on scuba diving.

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