We have some great news for all sugar-addicts out there who want to lose weight! A recent study led by Professor Daniela Jakubowicz of Tel Aviv University says that by incorporating dessert into your daily diet, you can actually lose weight. But, there’s a catch: you have to eat dessert for breakfast.
How can this be, you ask? According to Jakubowicz, the time of day that we eat has a major impact on our metabolism and the way that our bodies break down food. Breakfast is used by some dieters as a way to fight off cravings for the rest of the day by eating a good mix of different foods—however, most people don’t have dessert in the morning. Jakubowicz and her team decided to see what what would happen if they did, according to Byrdie.
Researchers asked study participants to eat a large breakfast in the morning, but added a twist—a decadent dessert to top off the meal. A big breakfast AND cake? That can’t be a real diet method, can it!? Apparently, it can.
Over the period of 12 weeks, researchers studied 93 women classified as “obese.” These women were separated into two different groups at random and fed different diets. The first group ate 700 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch and 200 at dinner. The second group did the exact opposite, eating 200 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch and 700 at dinner. For both groups, the breakfast and dinners consisted of the same foods. This structure was to see if the time of day a person eats has a strong impact on their weight and the way their body breaks down foods, even when there are cookies involved.
By the end of the study, women in the breakfast-with-dessert group lost an average of 10 pounds more than those in the second group. Researchers found that the first group also exhibited lower levels of ghrelin, a hormone that regulates hunger. The overall conclusion of the study is that eating a larger breakfast, even if it includes dessert, may help a person to maintain a healthy body weight and fight off cravings for the remainder of the day.
This is great news for everyone who has been told that weight loss and chocolate chip cookies are mutually exclusive, or that ice cream isn’t a “real” breakfast food. However, it’s good to keep in mind that this is only one study, and there is SO much we don’t know about nutrition! So go ahead and try out a hearty breakfast as a way to fight cravings—But maybe don’t incorporate a daily morning ice cream cone until you’ve talked to your doctor.