Can Chocolate Cause You Weight Gain?

Most people who get fat probably gain weight because they decided to eat more calories than they actually burn. Hence, It should be taken to heart that no single food will make you fat if enjoyed occasionally, or being a part of a balanced diet. However, excessive consumption of these foods will likely make you gain more weight over time.

More often, you avoid sweets most of the time – but chocolate bars packed with nuts and caramel is reaching out to you. But will it reduce your weight loss progress or even make you gain more?

Well, maybe. One chocolate bar won’t cause any damage to your diet, but regularly adding chocolate to your diet might shoot up the scales if you are not including it in your daily calorie count. And while dark chocolate has a lot of serious health benefits, you can gain weight also from eating too much.

But the news is not all that bad. Read on more to learn about how chocolate can affect your weight – and to how to avoid gaining when you eat it.

All calories count

First of all: chocolate is a concentrated source of calories, and eating too much chocolate is like eating too many calories and it will make you gain weight. Exactly how many calories you will get hence depends on exactly the kind of chocolate you eat.

A 1.5-ounce bar of milk chocolate contains about 235 calories – slightly above 10 percent of your daily intake of a 2,000-calorie diet – which is therefore about the same as the calories in the same size container of white chocolate. Larger bars have bigger calorie counts: a dark chocolate bar weighing about 3.5 ounces, for example, has about a staggering 604 calories.

Because it is a concentrated source of calories, eating just one bar of chocolate over your regular diet can lead to weight gain over a period of time. But there are downsides, even if you fit a larger chocolate bar into your calorie intake. Spending 600 of your calorie intake on a chocolate bar instead of a normal meal will leave you hungry, which will, therefore, make it hard to stay within your calorie goals.

Sugar is a problem too

When it comes to chocolates, it’s not just about the calories – it’s the sugar. Though sugar is a concentrated source of energy, it does not fill you up. So even though you get to eat a high-calorie bar, you might find out that hunger starts to come back within about an hour or two, whereas a 600-calorie meal that is made from lean proteins, whole grains and veggies would probably have kept you going for more hours.

What is more, the sugar in chocolate triggers the blood sugar spike. And when your body overcompensates to lower the blood sugar the dreaded blood sugar will crash and you will find yourself weak and waiting for the next meal.

Hence, In simple terms, you can eat until you are past the point where you feel full is rarely a good idea. Chocolate can definitely be part of a healthy diet and lifestyle, but maintain a level of moderation to help you in your weight maintenance and weight loss. Exercising regularly will help you more when it comes to flexibility with your diet and the number of treats you can get away with, but if you are frequently eating more food than your body needs and this is true of any food, not just chocolate, then you will most likely gain weight.

A lot of people enjoy the longest, satisfying, and productive quality of life as much as possible. So we notice when studies get to suggest that eating a particular food like chocolate can help you live longer and maybe even in most cases help us keep slim.

We love dark Chocolates. But we also read about research that shows us that eating chocolates contributes to weight gain. So then what should the right answer be?

Wellness professionals should never trust a single study that had already been made. Look at many studies, giving heavy weight to reviews and meta-analyses.

“It’s better having a synthesis of all the studies to get down to what is really going on, When reviewing any study, don’t just check only for the best available evidence, but also for trustworthy sources that are much more reliable

Let’s look at the evidence

In the case of chocolate, there are too many studies that have argued both sides of the coin. After a review, some of these studies on these topics, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses are of random trials, we, therefore, believe the answers may lie in moderation.

Chocolates are high in calories, sugar, and fat. And eating a lot of it might cause weight gain. And obesity has a much significant negative impact on our health. However, a small amount of chocolate may actually provide a lot of health benefits – especially the dark, polyphenol-rich chocolate. The darker the chocolate, the better it is for you due to the higher percentage of polyphenols.

A moderate amount of chocolate intake can help lower blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity, and improve HDL, LDL, and total cholesterol levels. Several research studies have proven that eating more chocolate is linked to lower cardiovascular. Chocolates are a very rich source of antioxidants, which includes polyphenols and catechins. They help protect the cardiovascular system. In the study of animals, these cocoa-derived antioxidants increase capillary formation and muscular performance. These nutrients are also increased lean muscle mass and decrease body weight without reducing calories or increasing exercise.

A study has shown that people who eat chocolate regularly have a lower body mass index (BMI) than those who eat chocolate less often. And that is even after adjusting for confounders like physical activities. It does not seem too logical, but the findings are supported by similar research that looks at the health benefits of cocoa and chocolates.

Our findings as regards to the fact that more frequent chocolate consumption is linked to lower BMI are overwhelming. If you enjoy a lot of chocolates especially dark chocolate, eating a little may not be harmful and may be beneficial. But try to add in a little extra exercise with your chocolates. It might help you burn the added calories. And if you don’t want the fat and sugar found in most of the chocolate candies, you should try a cup of hot chocolate. The benefit is in the chocolate and not the sugar or added fat.

A recent review of chocolates clinical trials concluded that there is a big marginal, but statistically insignificant reduction in weight and BMI. Eating chocolate has no effect on waist circumference. However, the study points out the fact that chocolate studies have been small population studies, and its recommend that future trials include a lot of larger populations.