Lose Weight

If there is one food people are emotional about its chocolate. We love it, want it, crave it, and fear it. Thoughts of chocolate stir up tender feelings of comfort and self-pampering. We connect chocolate with happy times and consider it a must-have pick-me-up in times of stress and anxiety. When Valentine’s Day comes around the store shelves are loaded with the so called guilty pleasure. Can we eat it and still lose weight though? Let’s take a look at the facts about chocolate.

Chocolate comes from roasted cacao beans, which are mashed into a thick paste, heated to liquid state and then tempered before being shaped into bars. Sugar and vanilla are added during the mashing phase. The result of this process is cocoa butter, chocolate liquor or cocoa.

The cocoa butter in chocolate is a saturated fat. According to recent studies the body is able to turn the cocoa butter fat into monounsaturated fat in a process similar to pressing olive oil. In addition it contains strong antioxidant activity, equivalent to that of red wine and green tea. Antioxidants have been shown to give some protection against cancer. In fact, cocoa has more flavanoids, an important antioxidant, than green tea does. It's probably the richest source of flavanoids in our diet. This seems promising for an occasional treat while losing weight.

From a health perspective for the best choice is high-quality, plain, dark chocolate. The first ingredient on a bar of high-quality chocolate should be chocolate (also called chocolate liquor, cacao or cocoa. It should never be sugar. Is this free rein to indulge in chocolate? Probably not. Most experts agree chocolate will never help you lose weight. While chocolate may be high in nutrients, it is also high in calories. Even a new sugar-free chocolate doesn't give people a free pass to go overboard. I don’t think it can help us lose weight but, a small bite of dark chocolate sure does pick up the spirits. That’s a good thing when we want to reward our selves for reaching our goals successfully.

Marg Roukens
202-657-5874
SKYPE: marg_roukens
Tri Power Team

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Tags: diet, health, lose weight