Good news! Eating chocolate cake for breakfast can help you lose weight

As the saying goes, "A day's plan begins in the morning." Eating a hearty breakfast is particularly important for busy modern people; however, according to an Israeli study, eating a moderate amount of chocolate cake after breakfast can actually help reduce weight.

Israeli scholars have put forward new insights, believing that consuming a high-calorie breakfast can achieve the effect of weight loss. (Photo/From the British Daily Telegraph)

The British newspaper The Telegraph quoted a journal article published in the December 2011 issue of Steroids, which stated that a research team from Tel Aviv University in Israel conducted a 32-week experiment on 193 severely overweight men and women. One group only received 300 calories for breakfast, while the other group had a piece of protein and carbohydrate-rich chocolate cake after their main meal, bringing their total calorie intake to 600 calories.

Halfway through the experiment, the average weight loss for all participants was 15 kg (33 lb). However, over the next 16 weeks, the 600-calorie breakfast group continued to lose 6.8 kg (15 lb), while the 300-calorie breakfast control group unexpectedly gained 10 kg (22 lb). Overall, the subjects who ate a high-calorie breakfast every day lost more weight, an average of 18 kg (40 pounds).

Professor Daniela Jakubowicz, who is in charge of the study, explained that the hormone "ghrelin" in the body is the key to producing "hunger". When the stomach is empty, "ghrelin" will be secreted in large quantities, making people feel "hungry". The effect of suppressing this hormone by eating breakfast is better than the other two meals. Therefore, the more calories you consume at breakfast, the longer you can delay the onset of hunger. Conversely, people who do not eat a good breakfast often eat a lot of high-calorie and high-sugar snacks outside of the main meal to fill their hunger because they cannot tolerate hunger, and their weight will naturally soar. Therefore, the saying "eat breakfast like a king." makes sense.

A man needs 1,600 calories a day, while a woman needs 1,400 calories. Swallowing 600 calories in one go in the morning will not only not cause you to gain weight, but it will allow your body to automatically adjust the time and amount of calorie intake, and you can also maintain a good spirit throughout the day. The researchers also found that the weight loss effect of eating a high-calorie breakfast is long-term and the chance of regaining weight is not high. Therefore, moving afternoon tea or dessert after dinner to the morning can be said to kill two birds with one stone!