Health

Can Cake for Breakfast Help You Lose Weight?

by Emily Sutherlin | February 10, 2012 at 08:18 am

173 views | 2 Recommendations | 3 comments

In a recent study from Tel Aviv University, findings show that eating a small dessert with a balanced breakfast can help you shed pounds.

Is dessert with breakfast good for you?
According to the study conducted by Tel Aviv University, morning is the best time to consume sweets because that's when the body's metabolism is most active - and we have the rest of the day to work off the calories.

Should you avoid extra calories altogether?

Not necessarily. Researchers split 193 clinically obese, non-diabetic adults into two groups who consumed either a low-carb diet that included a 300-calorie breakfast or a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that included a chocolate cake dessert.

Halfway through the 32-week study both groups had lost an average of 33 lbs per person. But in the second half of the study the low-carb group regained an average of 22 lbs per person - while the dessert gorgers lost another 15 lbs each.

How does eating dessert during breakfast help you lose weight?

Breakfast is the meal that best helps regulate ghrelin, the hormone that increases hunger, says professor Daniela Jakubowicz, one of the researchers. "The group that consumed a bigger breakfast, including dessert, experienced few if any cravings for these foods later in the day," Jakubowicz says, "The participants in the low-carbohydrate diet group had less satisfaction and felt that they were not full," so their cravings for sugars and carbohydrates were more intense as the day passed. Many broke down and cheated on their diet, so they lost, on average, 40 pounds less than peers who got to have their cake, and lose weight too.