I don't believe a calorie is a calorie. If you are eating half your daily calories in junk you are effectively starving your body and over the long term your body will adjust to hang on to all the fat it can since it'll need that fat as fuel since you aren't giving it any healthy new fuel to live on.

Did you lose weight just to be thinner or to be healthy?

If it's just to be thinner - then you'll have to decide what you want more thin or sweets. You can't have both. Some people, especially when they are younger, seem to be able to have both but not most folks. Most of us have to choose.

If you lost weight to be healthier then it's a no brainer because no matter what your weight, your body needs nutrition to be healthy.

If you can't either give up the sweets or learn to enjoy them in moderation, and very strict moderation, your body will make you decision for you and you'll quickly weigh more than you did when you started.

There's a huge difference on what 200 calories of cheesecake will do to your body versus 200 calories of veggies.

Start cooking healthier things, don't buy stuff that you know you will make into bad food, and commit to eating better. You have to make that decision if you want to lose the weight.

If you truly love cooking and baking that much, keep a very small portion of what you make and donate the rest. Take what you make up to the teacher's lounge at your local school. Or if you live in a college town, take it to one of the local fraternity/sorority houses. Or take what you cooked to the local homeless shelter or women's shelter.

You do not, I repeat DO NOT, have to consume every morsel of food you cook!!

I know how you feel. I, too, cannot seem to make something without it constantly calling my name from the kitchen. That's why, I try not to bake until the weekends. At least I can minimize the damage to just a day or two. After that, I will either throw it out, freeze it (i.e., if it's something that doesn't taste great frozen---I've been known to eat frozen pecan pie), and/or bring it to work.

pet pet, don't feel like you have no one to share with - you have everyone here at 3FC. Believe me, many of us have to deal with a sweet tooth too.

sluggerbean is right - bake for others. I'm making chocolate chip cookies for church right now. I will end up eating a couple but most will get eaten by my friends and I'll have had the fun of baking plus the joy of having people enjoy really good homemade cookies.

As for the fact some folks seem to be able to eat pretty much anything and stay thin - lucky for them and for their sake I hope their metabolism doesn't change as they get older. Unfortunately life isn't fair. You can spend your time fussing over the unfairness or pull on your boots and get busy being thankful for what you've got.

Oh, and you know what really isn't fair? It's easier to gain weight after you've lost it - regaining 30 pounds happens MUCH faster than gaining it did the first time. And then it's harder to lose that weight the next time, and even harder the time after that.

If you think being healthy all your life seems impossible then you have the option of forever having to relose the same 30 pounds and every time will take longer and be harder. Talk about unfair!

But what if you maintain your weight for, lets say, 5 years? Will it be just as easy to gain then?

AMEN!!!

I'm at 4 years and, sadly, it's still true for me.

Well, thats the worst news I've heard all year. :P

Alas, yes. Imagine your body starts with 100 "fat cells" - that's cells whose soul purpose in life is to store fat (which your body might need in times of famine). Life is good, there is no famine - just the opposite in fact. You fill up those 100 fat cell and your body, still thinking ahead toward possible bad times, makes more fat cells. It can keep making fat cells pretty much forever, as many as it takes to store all the fat it possibly can. Now you have 10,000 fat cells! You are sooooo set for the coming bad times!

Fast forward to the time you wake up and step on the scale. OMG! And you get serious about eating carefully and losing weight. Slow but sure you lose all that weight. Yippee!

However, the sad news is that your body still has those 10,000 fat cells. They didn't go away when you lost weight, they just let go of the fat and flattened out. But they are still there, just waiting in case you need them to store fat again. Instead of having to make brand new fat cells to store new excess fat your body can save time and energy by just reusing the old flat fat cells. It's so much easier and faster to "reinflate" the old cells. And, of course, if you manage to fill them all up, your body can get back in the manufacturing business and make you even more fat cells.

Yeah, I see what you are saying. Definitely bad news. But this is a lifestyle, not a diet. So I should be fine, right? Well, I hope.