Think you shouldn’t eat that Vida chocolate with your coffee? Think again… Here’s how eating the once-forbidden stuff can help you to actually shed kilos instead of gaining them. The caveat: you need to follow these guidelines – otherwise the theory could backfire on you…
1. Time it right to win!
If you eat chocolate 20 minutes before and five minutes after lunch and dinner you can cut your appetite by up to 50 percent! Yes really!
2. Fight sugar spikes
It turns out that the sweet stuff can fight sugar spikes. In one study from the University of L’Aquila in Italy, people who ate a chocolate bar worth of dark chocolate once a day for 15 days in a row decreased their potential for insulin resistance by almost 50 percent.
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While researchers credit flavonoids for reducing insulin resistance, weight-loss specialist and board-certified internist Sue Decotiis, notes that dark chocolate also contains healthy fats, which slow the absorption of sugar into the blood stream. That helps prevent the dreaded insulin spike, which is famed for shuttling sugar straight into your fat cells. “Insulin spikes turn off your body’s fat-burning mechanisms and make you hungry again several hours later,” she says. Over time, they can also lead to insulin resistance and diabetes.
3. Curb cravings
Meanwhile, Swiss scientists have found that dark chocolate reduces the metabolic effects of stress, and University of Copenhagen researchers have shown that dark chocolate curbs cravings for sweet, salty, and fatty foods alike.
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4. Cross over to the dark (chocolate) side
And that brings us to the fine print: This only works if you reach for dark chocolate (i.e. types that are made up of at least 70 percent cacao). “White and milk chocolate has a lot of added sugar and contains milk (also a type of sugar), while dark chocolate has less added sugar, contains monounsaturated fatty acids, and has a bittersweet taste that reduces the amount you eat,” says Decotiis.
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