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How to cheat while on diet and still lose weight
Good news, science has found a way to include chocolate cake and other delicious munchies into a DIET programme without sacrificing weight loss. The secret….
Dieting means
- Incessant dreams of chocolate cake
- A constant feeling of deprivation, because you can’t have the chocolate cake
- Moments of failure, as the chocolate cake temptation becomes unbearable
- A mouthful of chocolate cake which tastes good and bad at the same moment, but ends on a BAD note
- Followed by hours of feelings of guilt and condemnation
- And an unforgiving scale
Good news, researchers from Tel Aviv University have found a way to include chocolate cake and other delicious munchies into a DIET programme.
It’s all in the timing
So how can indulging in chocolate cake, when on diet, BE OKAY ?
The key is to indulge early on in the day i.e. the chocolate cake must be eaten as part of breakfast.
This is what the research team found…… when the signed up a cohort of 193 obese non-diabetic adults to their special diet programme.
Testing out the chocolate cake diet
Calories were strictly counted – the underlying premise of any successful diet program.
Men could eat 1600 calories per day and women 1400. The participants were advised to follow a low carbohydrate eating plan.
But half of the dieters got handed the “chocolate cake” bonus.
In the “chocolate cake” bonus, dieters were required to consume 600 calories for breakfast. And now for the tough part of the bonus – it had to include something “dessert-like” e.g. chocolate cake.
Everyone was required to diet for 32 weeks.
Chocolate cake diet more successful in the long run
The participants were monitored along the way.
At 16 weeks progress was steady. Everyone had lost weight. There was no big difference between either programme. But in the second half of the programme – things changed.
The dieters who were soldiering on without any foodey rewards, started to pick up the weight they had lost.
Weight loss on different diet programmes. Blue shows a traditional diet, maroon shows, dieters following the special programme (which included sweet treats for breakfast). Copyright 2011 Elsevier Inc
The chocolate cake dieters continued to lose weight.
When weight loss was added up at the end – the biggest losers were those eating a big, somewhat indulgent breakfast.
Dieting is about the LONG RUN
It really doesn’t matter which diet you follow – if you cut calories you will lose weight.
Because weight management always boils down to
Calories in = calories out.
The hard part about dieting is keeping the weight off.
Most people lose it and then put it back on, with a little extra.
The problem is a head one.
- The body doesn’t like to be stripped of its fat supply. It has squirreled the stuff away for a rainy day. The rainy day happens – you go on diet. The body wants to get the supply back up, because ANOTHER RAINY DAY IS COMING ! Your next diet.
- The first three letters of diet spells D-I-E. Sticking to a restrictive diet is HARD, REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD.
A little chocolate cake in the morning helps with point 2.
Doing it in the morning, makes it easier for the body to handle it.
The chocolate cake diet
Adding chocolate cake to the menu solves the deprivation issue.
This helps dieters keep CONTROL.
Keeping CONTROL ensures that those unexpected calorie surges, which typically scuttle weight loss efforts, are avoided.
Desserts for breakfast ?
For those of you who just do coffee – the thought of eating dessert for breakfast may be repulsive.
But you can train your brain /stomach.
This might just be the ticket to cheat while on diet.
We’ve all heard the saying………..
Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen and dinner like a pauper
This is more than a quaint saying – scientifically speaking, the body is on maximum burn power early on in the day. So in theory there is more wiggle room for extra calories.
Go on, have your cake and eat it, early in the morning !
Further reading
A buffet doesn’t have to be fattening if you approach is sagaciously
The value of a buffet is you get to CHOOSE. But YOU might not be CHOOSING quite as much as YOU thought. But you can choose if you know how…
Dessert should be part of your child’s dinner
There is ALWAYS room for dessert. ALWAYS. Dessert is eaten, because it tastes good, not because of hunger. By serving dessert with dinner – hunger rules.
Blowing your diet often comes in small packages
The single serve package is just an innocent pleasure, but the bite size morsel causes a dopamine spike bringing very pleasurable feelings, so you have another.
