Eat chocolate cake for breakfast if you want to lose weight
It sounds too good to be true, but new research says having dessert -- along with the traditional fry-up -- burns off the pounds.
Morning is the best time to consume sweets because that is when the body's metabolism is most active -- and we have the rest of the day to work off the calories, a new study shows.
Eating cookies or chocolate as part of breakfast that includes proteins and carbs also helps stem the craving for sweets later.
Researchers split 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two groups who consumed either a low-carb diet that included a 300-calorie breakfast or a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that included a chocolate cake dessert.
Halfway through the 32-week study, both groups had lost an average of 33lbs per person. But in the second half of the study, the low-carb group regained an average of 22lbs per person -- while the dessert gorgers lost another 15lbs each.
At the end, those who had consumed a 600-calorie breakfast had lost an average of 40lbs more per person than their peers.
Although both groups consumed the same daily total calories -- the men 1,600 calories per day and the women 1,400 -- "the participants in the low-carbohydrate diet group had less satisfaction and felt that they were not full," said Professor Daniela Jakubowicz.
hnews@herald.ie
- Jonathan Gray
