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Do you want to lose weight, but cannot give up sweets? Well, you may want to try the chocolate diet and the coffee diet…

OK, I am not a fan of extremely low calorie diets, since most dieters after stopping the diet, gain the all weight they lost back and more. I rather would like you to change your life style and keep the healthy body weight for the rest of the life. Still, we could use some help by adding a few things into your daily diet.

By now, we all know the benefits of chocolate. Eating “dark” chocolate regularly, you may be able to lower blood pressure and lower your cardiovascular risk. It improves the cholesterol balance and regulates your insulin level. It is very high in antioxidants and seems to prevent some types of cancers. It also calms your anxiety. However, many people hesitate to eat chocolate regularly since it is high in calories and eating the chocolate may cause weight gain.

Well, you may not need to worry about the weight gain. According to a research done at University California San Diego, people who eat chocolate regularly have a lower Body Mass Index (BMI: lower the number, thinner you are) compared to people who don’t eat chocolate regularly. People who eat chocolate are not eating fewer calories; in fact, they are eating, on average, more calories than the counterparts. Although researchers don’t know the exact causes, they conjecture that chocolate might reduce fat deposition in the body. This is really great news!

Of course, this does not mean that you can eat 5 pounds of chocolate every day. If you do that, you will still gain weight and probably you will get the heart problem! If you eat a moderate amount of chocolate every day with your regular work out and healthy diet, you may be able to accelerate your fat loss.

No study has been done to determine the standard amount of chocolate you should eat daily for weight control, but probably 2-3 pieces of small chocolates should be OK. Make sure that you eat “dark” chocolate, preferably with a cocoa content of 80% and up, but if you are not used to that real dark of chocolate, start from 70%. The flavor is far more intense in these high cocoa-content chocolates and you can satisfy your taste for chocolate with a smaller dose.

You may want to eat chocolate before the workout. Since it has a moderate amount of caffeine and a good amount of calories, you may be able to keep your workout going longer. However, it could also give you an opposite effect depending on the person. Personally, a small amount of chocolate makes me relaxed and sleepy. You should see how the chocolate affects you and adjust the timing of eating chocolate accordingly.

At the same, at the American Chemical Society meeting where this study was announced, another interesting study was presented. A study done at University of Scranton of Pennsylvania showed that raw green coffee beans may accelerate weight loss significantly. Green coffee extract has been around for a while as an aid for blood sugar regulation. In this study, researchers gave overweight people up to 1 gram of green coffee extract to see how it affected their weight. People who participated in this study lost, on average, 17 pounds in 22 weeks (they also did work outs and ate a healthy diet) which was a much faster weight loss rate than that without the green coffee bean extract.

Why did it have this effect? Raw coffee beans contain a chemical called “chlorogenic acid” which is destroyed if the bean is roasted. This chemical seems to accelerate weight loss. Even the normal roasted coffee can aid you to lose weight because of high caffeine content (which raise metabolism), but this seems to be a totally different effect.

If you like to try, you can find the extract via Internet health food stores. Since there is no safety study done for how much green coffee extract you can take, I would be a bit careful not to take as large of a dose of the extract as this study used, but it seems that many extracts (in the bottle) come with around 400 mg per serving; so I assume that it is probably safe to take that much. You can also buy raw green coffee beans and chew the beans (or grind them yourself,) though probably want to eat it with the dark chocolate.

As usual, you should consult with your doctor before trying a new supplement like this. Just because it is “natural” it does not mean “safe.” Even though mushrooms grow naturally, some of them will kill you. So be careful when you start with a new supplement.

OK, here is a bonus. One more food you may want to eat often: Popcorn! It is known to have a very high in fiber which aids weight loss, but it is also found to be very high in antioxidants, even much higher than fruits and vegetables. The reason that popcorn is not good for the body is that most people add butter on it; so it is high in fat and salt. To make it healthier, try herb mixes specifically made for popcorn. It is quite tasty (Note that it is still high in salt. So don’t put on too much.).

Sources:
Association Between More Frequent Chocolate Consumption and Lower Body Mass Index. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2012;
New evidence on effects of green coffee beans in weight loss. American Chemical Society (ACS) March 2012.
Popcorn: The snack with even higher antioxidants levels than fruits and vegetables. American Chemical Society (ACS) March 2012.

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In one of the previous articles, I wrote about the easiest way to lose weight is getting sufficient sleep. Well, here are two more pieces of evidence that you need enough sleep to keep extra pounds off.

A research study done at Uppsala University showed that the sleep-deprived brain displays much higher activities in the area which stimulates appetite. This is probably because the brain thinks that you are not getting enough sleep because you are under some sort of stress and needs more energy to run the body just in a case of the emergency (e.g., a predator attack.) Fortunately for most of us, this emergency does not happen and the extra calories consumed is stored as fat.

There is also a sociological reason. A survey done at City University of New York showed that people who don’t get enough sleep tend to eat out more often rather than cooking at home, probably because of their busy schedule. Many of them tend to eat at fast food restaurants. This meant, not only do they eat far more calories than they need, they also cannot keep their nutritional balance as well. Accordingly, they gain weight.

Further, because they feel sleepy and tired from the sleep depravity, they resolve to drink coffee, tea, and soft drinks loaded with caffeine. Although some drink it without sugar and milk, many of them use sugar and/or cream; and the calories accumulate by the end of the day. Even if you drink diet soft drinks or sugar substitutes, it still makes you fat (see the previous article.)

Therefore, it is best if you sleep about 7 to 8 hours a day, but many people cannot afford to sleep that much. We work 10 hours a day, commute 2 hours, and then need to do housework for our family. No way, we can get 8 hours straight of sleep.

Although not everyone can do this because of the environment where they work, taking a nap is a great alternative. It is well known that a short nap during the daytime really helps to solve this problem. The nap should not be more than 20 minutes; if you sleep longer than that, you get into a deeper sleep cycle and when you wake up, you feel more tired than refreshed.

Too bad that few companies understand the benefit of short naps. Without the nap, the productivity of the work after lunch drops significantly. In one study, a researcher found that about 20% of workers fell asleep by the mid afternoon. On the other hand, if you take a short nap, the productivity won’t drop in afternoon and the time lost by napping can be more than compensated.

Another thing you can do is, of course, workout. If you workout, you can sleep deeper at night, and you don’t need a longer sleep (still most people need more than 6 hours.) Farther workout brings more oxygen to your brain and clean up the wasted matters and that also helps keep you awake. Sure, you need to count the time used for the workout, but you need it for your health anyway.

Eating also affects the sleep. If you eat late at night, and if the food is still in the stomach, your sleep is light and you need a longer sleep. It is better not to eat a heavy meal less than 4 hrs before going to bed, and don’t eat anything closer to 2 hrs before the bed time. During the daytime, eat smaller meals throughout the day so that your blood sugar level is steady. Pay attention to the food you eat. Some foods make you more tired; usually high calorie food makes you sleepy, but it depends on the person. Avoid then as much as you can.

Still it is nice to be able to sleep 8 hours a night.

Sources:
Acute Sleep Deprivation Enhances the Brain’s Response to Hedonic Food Stimuli: An fMRI Study. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2012
Sleep Problems May Affect A Person’s Diet. American Academy of Sleep Medicine 2007.

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We all know that vegetables and fruits are good for our bodies. They have great amounts of vitamins and antioxidants. They are low in calories and a good source of fibers. Still, many people are not eating enough vegetables and fruits. So here is another incentive to eat them: They assist in losing belly fat!

According to a study done at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, with every 10-gram increase in soluble fiber eaten per day, you lose 4% of belly fat (visceral fat) over 5 years, even without any workout. If you do work out, you may lose 7% of the fat in the same period. You may think that it is not enough, but even a 4% reduction of visceral fat will significantly affect your overall health.

Ten grams of soluble fiber is two small apples, one cup of green peas, or a half-cup of pinto beans. You can get soluble fiber from oatmeal and other grains, too. If you really cannot eat that much vegetables or fruits, you can take a fiber supplement, although it will be more expensive and not quite as tasty.

You also want to avoid soft drinks since they are loaded with sugar – which is especially bad since this sugar is usually fructose. Fructose is known to increase the risk of diabetes. According to a study conducted at the University of Bristol in the UK, it stimulates fat cells and this makes the body less insulin-sensitive. Fructose not only gives the fat cells extra energy to store, but actively stimulates the process. In short, you get fatter faster!

Drinking diet soft drinks does not help either. One study done at the University of Texas Health Science Center found a correlation between the amount of diet soft drinks consumed and increase of the waistline. They found that over 10 years, regular diet soft-drinkers increased their waistlines 500% more than non-drinkers! Another study at the University of Texas done on mice indicates the cause. In this study, they gave aspartame, a popular sugar substitute, to mice and found that glucose levels are much higher in these mice. So drinking diet soft drink makes you both fat and un-healthy.

Note that, although fructose is the main sugar in fruit, the concentration is much lower than that in soft drinks, and eating fruit won’t give you the same bad effects. In fact, a Taft University study says that 100% fruit juice won’t cause insulin resistance.

I recommend drinking tea and coffee (without sugar). But if you like a sweet drink, try 100% fruit juice. Adding sparkling water to it will make a very refreshing drink.

Sources:
Lifestyle Factors and 5-Year Abdominal Fat Accumulation in a Minority Cohort: The IRAS Family Study. Obesity, 2011
Fructose sugar makes maturing human fat cells fatter, less insulin-sensitive: The Endocrine Society 2010, June.
Waistlines in people, glucose levels in mice hint at sweeteners’ effects: Related studies point to the illusion of the artificial: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio 2011, June.
Sugary Drinks, Not Fruit Juice, May Be Linked To Insulin Resistance: Tufts University, Health Sciences 2007, September

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Every dieter faces several challenges: hunger, impulsive eating, maintaining motivation, and keeping weight off after losing it. I introduced a few tips before, but here are a few more tricks you may want to use:

1. Drink water.

This is a well-known trick for dieters, but it was finally proven by a scientific study. According to a study at Virginia Tech, people who drank two cups of water before every meal lost 25% more weight than people who did not. Another study done in 2007 showed that people drinking water 30 minutes before a meal felt less hungry and reduced food intake, especially those older than 35.

2. Eat soup.

Another trick often used is to make soup. It is well-known that for the same amount of calories, people feel more satisfied by eating food in a soup than eating it in solid form and drinking water at the same time.

3. Read food labels.

Avoiding high-calorie junk food is quite hard. However, according to a School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University study, people who read food labels but didn’t work out lost slightly more weight than people who worked out but didn’t read food labels. Of course, if you do workout AND read food labels, you should lose more weight. Yes, read food labels – they are actually quite disgusting. Common examples include “saturated fat 5 g, sugar 20 g, salt 5g…”, plus tons of unpronounceable chemicals…

3. Use cash while food shopping.

According to the State University of New York, if people use cash when they are food shopping, they do less impulsive buying, and tend to buy more healthy food compared with people who use a credit card or debit card.

4. Keep a log

According to the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, people who keep a record of their weight regularly reach their target weight much easier than people who do not. They recommend interactive web sites, such as Weight Watchers ©. (In their study, they used their own.)

Source:
Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults: Obesity 2010 Feb;18(2):300-7
Pre-meal water consumption reduces meal energy intake in older but not younger subjects: Obesity 2007 Jan; 15(1):93-9.
Use of Food Labels as a Weight Loss Behavior. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 2010
How Credit Card Payments Increase Unhealthy Food Purchases: Visceral Regulation of Vices. Journal of Consumer Research, 2010
The more frequently you log on, the more weight you can keep off, study finds: Journal of Medical Internet Research Dec 2010.

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Many studies done in the past indicate that a low glycemic index (GI: a measure of how quickly blood glucose levels increase for a given food) is better for health and weight management, and a high-protein diet, such as Atkins, appear to work well for certain groups of people. Now researchers at the University of Copenhagen have finally published conclusive evidence about which diet is the best to lose weight after a large controlled study done in Denmark: a combination of more protein and low GI is the best diet for overweight people.

They found that, among their controlled groups, people who ate about 25% of calories from protein with low GI carbohydrate foods lost weight far more than other groups, and they also got less hungry. To some extent, they could eat as much as they wanted so that they didn’t feel hungry.

This is good news – we don’t need an extreme diet, such as very high protein/fat, or very low fat. We just need to slightly modify our diet to lose weight. Of course, we need to reduce our overall calorie intake and increase the expenditure of calories to lose weight, but it seems that this combination will satisfy our appetite at a lower-calorie level.

So what are the most practical foods for us?

It is not difficult for most people in developed countries to eat the “required” amount of protein. In fact, most of us in the US eat far more protein than we probably need. However, the kind of protein we eat could be improved. In general, less red meat and more white meat like chicken and fish are recommended. Low fat dairy is good as are beans. Although you may want to cut all red meat from your diet, you should reconsider – it is a great source of iron (which is easily absorbed into the body). You should not eat any one particular type of protein exclusively; too much of a good thing may not be good for you. For example, many large predatory fish, such as tuna, may have higher amounts of mercury and other heavy metals in their meat. Soy is great, but it contains chemicals which mimic human hormones. It is better to get protein from a variety of sources.

The harder part is eating low-GI foods. Most processed foods are high-GI. Pure sugar is definitely a no-no. In general, the closer to “raw” the food is, the lower its GI (although there are exceptions – see below). So, as previously posted in another article, Haiga rice is better than white rice, and brown rice is much better than Haiga rice. Whole-grain bread is better than white bread, and Multi-grain bread is much better than white bread. Uncooked vegetables are better than cooked ones.

Vegetables and Fruits are, in general, low in GI, especially if they are eaten raw, but there are some exceptions. For example, bananas are high in GI especially if they are ripe. Grapes are also high in GI, since their sugar is glucose, not fructose. Carrots, beets and parsnips are also high in GI, especially if they are cooked, although they are much better than any processed food. Potatoes are high-GI foods, and if you like them, avoid mashed or baked.

There is a trick to converting a high-GI food into lower-GI. One method is to combine the high-GI food with protein and fat. The protein and fat slow down the absorption of carbohydrates into the blood stream, effectively lowering the GI of that food. So if you put a bit of olive oil on your multi-grain bread, its GI is much lower than the multi-grain bread with jam.
Here is an sample menu.

• Breakfast: whole-grain bread with low-fat cottage cheese, a glass of non-fat milk, and an orange.
• Morning snack: strawberries and non-fat plain yogurt (you could add protein-based sugar substitute).
• Lunch: chicken sandwich with whole-grain bread and mustard. Salad with soy-based meat substitute.
• Afternoon snack: non-fat milk and apple.
• Dinner: Steamed fish with a variety of vegetables and brown rice. Salad with avocado.

If you are wondering about the GI of a particular food, check out “The GI Diet Guide” (http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/). This site has great information about the glycemic index. And if you are serious about your diet, you should meet with a dietitian who has familiarity with your particular needs.

Source:
Diets with High or Low Protein Content and Glycemic Index for Weight-Loss Maintenance. New England Journal of Medicine, 2010; 363 (22): 2102
The Effect of Protein and Glycemic Index on Children’s Body Composition: The DiOGenes Randomized Study. Pediatrics, 2010; 126

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