My Challenge & My Guilt Free Treat

THE CHALLENGE- I challenged myself to no sweets until Thanksgiving Day. I started this challenge on Monday, November 7th, after consuming WAY too much candy the week after Halloween!. That will be a total of 17 days without sweets. This doesn't seem like a long time, and it isn't. The holidays are such a wonderful time of family, giving, and food. LARGE quantities of food! I find it very hard to stay focused on my goals when I have a 5 lb bucket of candy from Halloween staring at me every time I open the pantry, and when these yummy looking treats magically appear at work! I decided that if I simply told myself that I'm not allowed to have any sweets at all until Thanksgiving Day it would make it easier to stay focused, I started by planning my workouts for the remainder of the month, and then I shared what I was doing , so that my friends would help hold me accountable. Now, I am further commiting to this challenge by posting it up here, on my blog. All that said it has been 6 days, 6 days of eating healthy, staying under my calorie goal and working out everyday. I feel great and am looking forward to the next 10 days. I enjoyed day 7 with a little treat, no it's not technically a sweet! These little cups were fabulous, my mom and husband agree. Try them yourself, I promise you won't feel guilty, unless you eat them all at once.

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake Yogurt Cups

(mind didn't turn out so pretty, but they were tastey!)

Recipe from: Skinny Taste - an awesome new website I found. I'm sure you will be seeing many more posts from here!

I will rationalize every ingredient for you, just in case you need it!

You'll need:

• 12 reduced fat vanilla wafers- ok first of you are using the reduced fat ones, secondly it's a wafer! not a cookie!
• 8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese- cream cheese is used for cooking and to put on bagels, that is why it is not classified as a "sweet"! and the 1/3 less fat cream cheese is the only kind I use
• 1/4 c sugar - ok that's the same amount of sugar that I put in my spaghetti sauce, so a "cooking" amount is acceptable
• 1 tsp vanilla - I have no rationalization for this one, vanilla is really only used for baking sweets, but it's only 1 tsp for a total of 12 cups!
• 6 oz fat free Greek yogurt - no rationalization needed here! it's yogurt! Greek yogurt at that! good for you!
• 2 large egg whites - again no explanation needed- good for you!
• 1 tblsp flour - flour is used to make all sorts of non-sweet things!
• 3/4 c Pumpkin Butter or pumpkin pie filling. I made the pumpkin butter and will post it up soon, I promise! and rationaliztion- it's pumpkin, that's a vegetable!

Ok so now to make this yummy healthy snack!

Heat oven to 350. Line cupcake tin with liners. Place a vanilla wafer at the bottom of each liner. Gently beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Gradually beat in yogurt, egg whites and flour. Pour into cupake liners, filling halfway. Top each with 1 tblsp of the pumpkin butter. Swirl with a toothpick to make a marbling effect. Bake 25 mins or until center is almost set. Cool to room temperature and then chill a few hours before serving.

Enjoy!

Oh and just in case you're wondering, one cheesecake cup has 114 calories, 5g fat, 2g fiber, 4g protien, and 7 sugars!