Eat dessert for breakfast…and lose weight?
As part of a healthy weight loss diet, desserts have long been taboo. Until now, that is. In a surprising discovery, researchers from Tel Aviv University found that when dessert is incorporated into a 600-calorie breakfast, balanced with proteins and carbohydrates, dieters are able to lose more weight — and keep it off in the long run.
Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz, Dr. Julio Wainstein, and Dr. Mona Boaz of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Diabetes Unit at Wolfson Medical Center, and Prof. Oren Froy of Hebrew University Jerusalem, say that the key is to indulge in the mornings when we’re able to expend the extra calories throughout the rest of the day. Indulging early in the morning will also help control cravings, and it provides energy for the day’s tasks, aids in brain functioning, and kick-starts the body’s metabolism. Attempting to avoid sweets entirely can create a psychological addiction to these same foods in the long-term, explains Prof. Jakubowicz.
The TAU researchers conducted a 32-week study which allowed clinically obese, non-diabetic adults to add cookies, cake, and chocolate to their breakfast, and found the participants lost an average of 40 lbs., compared with a control group that abstained from sweets. The study also showed they were able to keep the weight off longer.
One of the biggest challenges that people face is keeping weight off in the long-term, says Prof. Jakubowicz. Ingesting a higher proportion of our daily calories at breakfast makes sense. It’s not only good for body function, but it also alleviates cravings. Highly restrictive diets that forbid desserts and carbohydrates are initially effective, but often cause dieters to stray from their food plans as a result of withdrawal-like symptoms. They wind up regaining much of the weight they lost during the diet proper.
Prof. Jakubowicz suggests, based on the results of the sudy, that curbing cravings is better than deprivation for weight loss success.
