The Mediterranean All-You-Can-Eat Chocolate Diet
There are diets that most of us are used to, and the Mediterranean diet goes for a different route. People going for this diet may eat nuts and eggs to their heart’s content, and yes, even chocolate! Only, it should have more than 50% cocoa. It allows them to have as much fish, seafood, low-fat cheese, and whole-grain cereals as they want.
If you are looking to follow this diet, you must also stick to having olive oil, which you use on salads as well as cooked veggies abundantly. Also, you must have at least two servings a day of vegetables, with at least one of those servings in the form of a salad, on top of at least three servings a day of fresh fruit.
Legumes, which include garbanzo beans, lentils, soybeans and peas, must be eaten at least three times a week. Additionally, you should eat fish or seafood three times a week, with at least one meal of a fatty fish like salmon, tuna or sardines.
A sauce made with tomatoes, garlic and onions simmered in lots of olive oil at least twice a week must also be a staple in your diet. You can pour the sauce on pasta, rice or vegetables. If you’re a wine drinker, you can have it with meals, at least seven glasses a week.
It goes without saying that there is also a list of foods you have to limit. Those include: cream, butter, margarine, pâté, lunch meats, French fries, potato chips, soft drinks and other drinks with sugar added.
Don’t shy away from the oil and nuts, considering they tend to make you full, making you eat less of other foods. Truth be told, nuts are ideal to be eaten at dinner time, since they are so filling.
I’m rambling on while the main idea is that you can eat as much chocolate as you want! This diet is supposedly based on what people in Mediterranean countries used to eat.
Categories: chocolate articles Tags: all you can eat chocolate, chocolate diet, meditarranean diet, nuts, people, three, unlimited chocolate, week
Chocolate Fitness
Regular ingestion of chocolate has been recently associated with healthy weight, according to a study involving 1,000 adults done at the University of California at San Diego.
Dr. Beatrice Golomb, who led the research which is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, said: “People have just assumed that because it comes with calories and it’s typically eaten as a sweet… it would inherently have been one way: bad,”
This particular study involved 1,000 mostly middle-aged adults who had their dose of exercise thrice a week and had their dose of chocolate twice every week. Those who had more chocolate usually had lower body mass indexes.
It’s no surprise that chocolate makers will lay out the benefits of chocolate, and so will fitness trainers. Many personal trainers are now linking chocolate to fitness, especially when you eat it after a strenuous workout or right after exercising.
Blake Raun, a trainer at Lifetime Fitness in Chicago, said: “Chocolate can increase one’s resting metabolic rate,” He added: “Having a higher resting metabolic rate means better metabolism and the more calories one can burn.”
The resting metabolic rate (RMR) refers to the minimum amount of calories that the body requires in backing up the basic physiological functions. Nevertheless, fitness trainers are not suggesting chocolate to be a separate supplement to their client, but they know that chocolate really packs a lot of benefits in exercise performance.
Golomb also acknowledged the benefits of chocolate in fitness. She also mentioned how chocolate milk is so popular as a sports drink during and after a strenuous workout in this time and age. She cited the results from the research that involved lab rats.
She said: “Chocolate essentially acted as an exercise magnet, allowing rats to run farther and increase muscle mass,” She also said that the research involving rats have indicated that these animals had a noticeable increase in their endurance, thus giving a reason to anticipate this pattern in humans.
The next time you want to hit the gym, you might want to have some chocolate with you. You can share it with your gym buddies, as well!
Categories: chocolate articles Tags: chocolate studies, exercise, fitness, milk chocolate, research, week
