3 strategies to lose weight by eating chocolate

“Nutri, I love chocolate, but I need to lose weight urgently and just thinking about the struggle it will be, I'm even scared”

Most diets teach you to restrict foods. It may seem easy at first, but when you start craving something sweet, it will be very difficult to hold back, and your diet will once again be ruined, and soon after, you will feel guilty about having failed.

To prevent this from happening and to ensure you can maintain your diet by eating what you like and still promote weight loss, we have prepared this content for you to learn now, 3 strategies to avoid eliminating chocolate from your diet and yes replace the options with smart choices, learn.

Watch the video:

Nutritionist Natália Stofel explaining strategies for choosing the ideal chocolate on the Tenho Saúde channel on YouTube.

List of ingredients on the label:

List of ingredients containing sugar in 1st place in chocolate. — List of ingredients containing sugar in 1st place.

Did you know that the order of the ingredients on the label determines which ingredient your product contains the most?

In practice, when analyzing the label of your chocolate, and the The first ingredient is sugar, which means that this chocolate is not healthy. To promote weight loss, the more sugar is in the last positions, the better.

THE ideal chocolate that will promote the goal of weight loss is what contains as first ingredient cocoa or cocoa mass.

List of ingredients containing cocoa in 1st place in chocolate — List of ingredients containing cocoa* in 1st place.

Another tip when analyzing the label is, how much the fewer ingredients it has, the better.

Combine and diversify:

One strategy that the nutritionist teaches her patients is to combine this chocolate with healthier foods. This way, you avoid eating the entire bar of chocolate at once, prolonging the feeling for longer.

Combination of chocolate, fruits and nuts. — Image by KamranAydinov on Freepik

In practice, instead of eating large amounts at once to satisfy your craving for your beloved chocolate, you will take a smaller portion and add some fruits favorites, such as strawberries and bananas, or other foods such as pancakes, seeds, nuts… Use your creativity to combine them.

But it is worth noting that the objective of the combination is to be healthier, promoting weight loss, so avoid combining with foods that have a lot of calories or carbohydrates.

The strategy is to reduce the amount of chocolate by adding other nutritious foods, this combination will further promote your satiety, since you will be feeding your body with other macronutrients besides chocolate.

Diversify and eat your chocolate without guilt.

Amount of cocoa:

If your goal is to lose weight, choose dark chocolate, but we know that this option has a stronger flavor and may not please your palate compared to milk chocolate, which is very sweet and super pleasant.

Percentage of cocoa in the composition of chocolate. — Amount of cocoa. Image of Java chocolates.

Our nutritionist reveals that There is a strategy for you to adapt and replace milk chocolate rich in sugar for darker chocolate, which is healthier.

But first, understand how chocolates are classified by “%” percentage according to the amount of cocoa:

White Chocolate	0% of cocoa. If your goal is to lose weight, avoid this type of chocolate
Milk chocolate	about 30% of cocoa.
Dark chocolate	contains about 40% to 50% of cocoa.
Dark chocolate	more than 70% of cocoa.

Table of % percentage of cocoa in varieties of chocolates available in the markets;

So the more % (percentage) of cocoa you have in your chocolate, healthier and more nutritious it will be for your diet.

If you don't have this habit, nutrition teaches you to train your palate, next time you go to buy your chocolate, start with 40% and gradually evolve, or buy your favorite chocolate and a semi-sweet one and eat both in small portions, until you get used to it and eliminate the milk chocolate that contains a lower concentration of cocoa.

Discover some benefits of cocoa:

Promotes weight loss;
Improves mood, reducing stress;
Helps regulate the intestines;
Anti-inflammatory and antioxidant;
Reduces blood pressure and helps heart health;
Vasodilator;
Helps regulate cholesterol;
Prevents anemia;
Helps respiratory health;
Reduces the risk of diabetes;
Improves vision;
Fights free radicals;
Improves memory and cognition.

Cocoa is a source of fiber, amino acids and minerals such as iron, chromium, zinc, magnesium, manganese, vitamin C and tryptophan.

Conclusion

When you eat the right way and make the right choices, it is possible to lose weight by eating everything. So when you go to the supermarket, follow these steps and eat your chocolate without guilt and nourish your body: