Calling all chokoholics! In addition to the antioxidants and other health benefits of eating chocolate, a new study suggests that a certain type of chocolate may actually help you reduce, along with when you eat it. And if you think you’ve guessed what kind of chocolate these scientists are shouting, a lot of these results are likely to blow you away.
Check out the chocolate that researchers found to support weight loss efforts, and read A major effect coffee has on your metabolism, says the expert.
A study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital was published this week in Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology went out to investigate whether eating 100 grams of chocolate at different times of the day affected the metabolism of women after menopause.
To begin with, 19 women were divided into three groups: one group ate chocolate in the morning, while another ate at night. The third group ate no chocolate at all. Otherwise, the participants did not have to change their usual dietary habits. This experiment was performed for 14 days.
An important factor? The choice in chocolate. The researcher says that dark chocolate is often credited with its health effects. For that reason, these researchers chose to see what happened by administering milk chocolate.
The first observation that the researchers say in their abstract is: “Our results show that 14 days of chocolate intake did not increase body weight.” If you find it convincing in itself, just keep reading …
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Both morning and evening, chocolate-eating groups of women saw reduced hunger and fewer sweets after the 14-day study.
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Both morning and night chocolate eaters burned more calories than a baseline measure, but the night group burned twice as many calories (300 on average) as the morning group’s average 150. Furthermore, night chocolate eaters experienced an increase in physical activity of 6.9 percent increased metabolism and even a decrease of the waist measurement by 1.7 percent. Their sleeping rhythms are also said to have been more regular. Why? The reason is very scientific – read to find out.
The researchers explain that eating chocolate seemed to change the composition and function of the microbiota in the gut, which they believe played an important role in hunger, activity and metabolic changes for the participants.
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There is one important caveat to point out before incorporating this amount of chocolate into your daily diet: While consumption of chocolate seemed to increase women’s calorie burning in this study, the calories in chocolate, about 542, significantly outweighs the increase in calories burned. So while it may be worth eating more chocolate to see how this serves you, it may be a bit excessive to opt for the whole 3.5 ounce regular.
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