Eat chocolate and lose weight, too

Dark chocolate is one of those things that makes life lovely. Especially if you are on an eating plan to lose a few “el bees,” spiff up, get fitter or healthier.  A delicious piece of dark chocolate can bring joy. It feels just a little decadent, which is what you want on a fat loss diet, right? 

So I want to tell you about this study reported last month in the Journal of the American Dietetics Association. Researchers took 26 overweight and obese women and put them on a reduced-calorie diet for 18 weeks. Half the women (13) enjoyed  a daily dark chocolate snack (put me in, coach!) and the other half enjoyed a non-chocolate snack. (I can only assume both groups enjoyed their snacks.)

By the end of the study period, both groups had lost body weight (the number on the scale), fat mass and body fat percentage and had a decrease in both hip and waist circumference, with no change in lean mass.

Works for me!

Unfortunately, I accessed the abstract only, which did not give particulars.

Ah! But, update! I found some information elsewhere on the ‘net. Hershey sponsored the study. Study subjects were given Hershey chocolate (two small pieces to eat twice a day, totalling 90 calories, plus a daily sugar-free cocoa) OR another type of candy, plus the sugar-free cocoa.

I’d also ask: Did the women also exercise (since they retained lean mass)?

The women who ate the dark chocolate snack actually did a little better on all comparisons than the women who had the other candy. Hmm. Why? The antioxidants in the dark chocolate? Was there a difference in insulin response to the snacks? This gets more interesting.

For home study

Naturally, if you’re going to replicate this study at home (“I’m only eating this chocolate in the name of science, honey”), you’ll need to figure the snack into your daily food allotment. (I hesitate to say “calorie count,” since I don’t count calories myself.)

But YOU know if you’re overdoing it. For me, it’s wine OR chocolate OR cheese. Not all 3 at once!

And even though it takes much longer to lose fat than it used to now that I’m 56, that’s OK. I’ll take my time and enjoy the journey…with my dark chocolate and my wine.

A neat trick: I used to call my boyfriend “the keeper of the chocolate.” On my say-so, he would dole out a small (not tiny!) piece to me at lunch time when we met up. Nowadays, we don’t see each other at lunch, so I have to be more disciplined and keep the chocolate at home.

This doesn’t always work, frankly. And I am figuring out whether it’s smarter for me to buy 85% chocolate (not as sweet, so I shouldn’t want as much, right?) or 70% chocolate (yummy, I have nothing bad to say).

The problem is, I sometimes go back for more of the 85% chocolate since I am not as satisfied. So maybe the 70% chocolate, although it contains more sugar, is the smarter bet.

What “chocolate tricks” do YOU have? (I recently interviewed one woman who keeps it in the freezer. I don’t know if I can do that to my chocolate, though. I tried. I think I heard it crying.)

Do you snack even when you want to shed a few pounds?