You can lose weight without giving up taste, but first you need to know a few tricks to lose weight with chocolate in a healthy way. Read our article from the Blog.
The Internet is full of articles describing the benefits of chocolate for our bodies and dispense tips on how to lose weight with this tasty and aphrodisiac food. Slimming down with chocolate is possibleBut before you gorge yourself on unhealthy bars, you must choose quality chocolate and eat it at the right time for your metabolism. Here are the secrets you need to know to lose weight by indulging in a daily sweet treat!
Chocolate yes, but quality
We often use the term chocolate as a synonym for cocoa, but these two foods are quite different. Cocoa is the raw material from which chocolate is made. It grows in nature in the form of seeds that are then processed and turned into powder, a bit like coffee. Chocolate, on the other hand, is the sum of cocoa, sugars and fats, and it is the latter two that determine its calorie content. In white and milk chocolate, the percentage of added fat and sugar is very high, and these two varieties are not at all dietary or healthy.
The dark chocolateinstead, has at least the 70% of cocoaoften even more. This means that the percentage of sugar and fat is reduced to the bone and with every bite you can have all the benefits of cocoa without feeling guilty or gaining weight!
Why cocoa makes you slim
Now that we understand the real difference between chocolate and cocoa, we can focus on the benefits that this 'magic powder' has for our body:
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It makes us feel good
Cocoa is a natural antidepressant because it contains Tetrahydroisoquinolines and Anandamide, substances also produced by our brain that are responsible for good mood, memory and concentration. Very often we struggle to diet precisely because we are stressed and nervous, if we eat a piece of chocolate every day, on the other hand, we feel good about ourselves and manage to follow a proper diet without too much effort.
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It makes us feel full
Cocoa activates the hormone leptin and reduces the hormone ghrelin. The former is responsible for satiety, the latter for hunger. Eat a piece of chocolate, then, makes us feel full immediately and cancels the sense of hungerreducing the amount of food we take in afterwards and helping us once again to maintain a healthy, balanced diet.
Neuroscientist Will Clower, in his book 'Eat Chocolate, Lose Weight' (2014) recommends taking 20 g of dark chocolate 20 minutes before meals to significantly reduce the amount of food we eat at lunch or dinner.
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Lowers cholesterol
Cocoa powder contains no fat, which is why does not add cholesterol to the blood, indeed.
Within cocoa are polyphenols in large quantities that not only keep us young, but also reduce bad cholesterol and prevent type 2 diabetes to make us fit the right way.
Chocolate is not enough to lose weight
While chocolate has obvious benefits for the figure, it does not mean that we have to gorge ourselves on snacks and junk food from morning to night in order to lose weight.
Le beneficial properties of cocoa work if they are supported by a healthy lifestyle regimeif we do sports, if we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, and if we are paying attention to the quantity and overall composition of foods we assume.
As we have already mentioned, it is not so much the cocoa that makes you fat or slim, but all the other nutrients in your favourite foods. So the next time you want to treat yourself to a sweet break, read the nutritional values of your snacks carefully and choose products with no added sugar, no palm oil, no trans fats and no GMOs. Also, try to treat yourself to a sweet break, but don't base your diet only on cocoa products if you want to stay fit and smile at life, just like we do!
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