1) A study found that postmenopausal women who ate chocolate during mornings did not gain weight, with the chocolate actually helping them burn fat. Other effects of the chocolate eating include reduce blood glucose levels, changes in hunger and appetite, and changes in microbiota (gut bacteria) composition and sleep.
2) In the study, 19 postmenopausal women ate either 100 grams of chocolate in the morning (within one hour after waking up) or at night (within one hour before sleeping). The women in the morning or night group did not gain weight. In fact, there was evidence that the eating chocolate in the morning helped burn fat and reduce blood glucose levels.
3) One take-away point from the study is that it’s not only what we eat, but also when we eat that impact our body’s regulation of weight. Especially for chocolate, it seems you can eat a lot of it without gaining weight, but eat it in the morning.
The study was done at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and published in The FASEB Journal.
Journal source: The FASEB Journal
Timing of chocolate intake affects hunger, substrate oxidation, and microbiota: A randomized controlled trial
23 June 2021