Eating Milk Chocolate After Waking Up Could Help With Weight Loss, Claims Study

Starting and ending our day with something sweet and sugary like milk chocolate could actually be beneficial in helping you burn body fat, says a study published in the journal FASEB.

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This is according to a study conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women¡¯s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and investigators at the University of Murcia in Spain.

In the study, they served 100 grams of milk chocolate to 19 post-menopausal women within an hour after waking up and an hour before going to bed for two weeks, followed by no chocolate for two whole weeks.

The chocolate contained 18.1 grams of cocoa in each serving. The chocolate of choice was also quite astonishing since it is supposed to possess the most caloric content, due to its sweetened nature, as opposed to dark chocolate.

Researchers saw that none of the two intakes resulted in a weight gain in the individuals. Researchers stated that instead, it was acting as an appetite suppressant. They in fact say that the milk chocolate in the morning also helped burn fat and reduce blood glucose levels.

This was due to the presence of flavonoids found naturally in cocoa that result in an increase in fat oxidation.

Study author Marta Garaulet at the University of Murcia explained, ¡°Our volunteers did not gain weight despite increasing caloric intake. Our results show that chocolate reduced ad libitum energy intake, consistent with the observed reduction in hunger, appetite and the desire for sweets shown in previous studies.¡±

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Researchers added, ¡°Females were less hungry when eating chocolate in the evening than in the morning or with no chocolate and had less desire for sweets when eating chocolate (in either the morning or evening) than with no chocolate.¡±

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Researchers also found, based on sleep records, that consuming chocolate at night resulted in more regular timing of sleep episodes with lower variability of sleep onset, compared with eating chocolate in the morning.

While the study does crave one to grab a chocolate bar while visiting the supermarket today, do keep in mind that the study was conducted in a very small set of specific individuals and more analysis is needed to see if similar results are experienced in all age and gender groups.