Chocolate Helps Burn Body Fat

Year over year, among the top three New Year's resolutions is losing weight. The good news this year is keep eating chocolate. In fact, eat more. Yup. Researchers found that eating chocolate in the mornings and evenings changes your metabolism so that you burn more fat.well, in post-menopausal women

The study group involved nineteen Spanish postmenopausal women between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five. They ate a quarter pound of milk chocolate within an hour of waking or going to bed for two weeks. Yes, that's a lot of chocolate, about a third of their daily calories, although the control group did not have any. They also all ate their normal diets.

Researchers found that no one gained weight despite all the chocolate and those who ate it reported feeling less hungry and eating less of other sweets. The Morning chocolate eaters lowered their daily calorie intake by three hundred calories while the evening eaters ate one hundred fifty fewer calories. The latter group also saw a seven percent bump in activity levels and thirty five percent bump in the amount of carbohydrates burned in the blood. The morning chocolate women saw smaller waist sizes, lower stress hormones and greater fat burning. Both groups had a change in their gut microbiome. This study suggests chocolate has a broad effect on appetite, sleep and how we process food for energy.

So far, the study is limited to post-menpausal women, but wouldn't it be nice if the rest of us had the same benefit!