Anyone who knows me well knows I have a HUGE sweet tooth and I love desserts! Chocolate chip anything will have my eyes wide and my mouth salivating in no time. While I love baked goods and desserts, I also love staying fit and healthy (as my good friends also know) so I'm always on the lookout for healthy, waist-friendly alternatives to my favorite treats. I think finding those healthy alternatives is really key to sticking to a good diet and combatting any future cravings that might have you grabbing for the cake and cookies by the handfull. If something is your absolute favorite food, you don't want to completely eliminate it from your diet! That's also just not realistic and could lead to binging later on. So instead, it's best to find/make a healthy version of it. There are a ton of healthy recipes online for everything from burgers and pizza to chocolate cake and key lime pie.

I personally love cooking and baking, but one thing I never do is use butter in my cooking. Olive oil, apple sauce, and greek yogurt are great substitutes to the fatty dairy product that won't have you sacrificing taste or texture. Promise! Sometimes I find that my baked goods are even MORE moist or chewy when I use one of those substitutes (that's the texture that I personally shoot for when I bake :).

I came across this conversion chart the other day that makes my life so much easier when trying to figure out how much yogurt to use in place of the requested stick of butter! Instead of guesstimating, now I know what the exact conversion is when I want to use Greek Yogurt in my cooking. :) Greek Yogurt has a ton of health benefits too... It's low in fat, loaded with protein and calcium, and has a number of active cultures and probiotics that can boost your immune system and help your digestive track. Why wouldn't you want to use it?? I made some delicious (and pretty guilt-free) cookies the other day using this chart and I'm planning on making more treats for my fam tonight. :) Now you can have your cake and eat it too. <3 Happy Cooking!!

The hardest part of making a change is always the first step. Once you get into a routine or a habit of being fit and eating clean, it almost becomes an addiction. But in a good way! I start to go crazy if I skip out on the gym for more than a couple of days and I've gotten to the point where I don't crave a lot of junk food I used to. 

Stay on the right path, don't let yourself steer too far, keep your goal in mind and WHY you want to achieve it, believe in yourself, and don't give up! Fitness goals aren't easy to accomplish, but keep going and eventually, your little habits become a healthy lifestyle. <3