Will a heaping slice of Entenmann’s cheese Danish with your vegetable omelet help you get lean and sexy?
Researchers at Tel Aviv University recently discovered that having dessert with your breakfast could help you lose weight. When you enjoy that chocolate cake in the morning, they argue, your body can burn off the sugar throughout the day.
During the 32-week long study, researchers assigned 193 obese, non-diabetic adults to one of two identical-calorie diets. Men ate 1,600 calories and women ate 1,400 calories a day.
One group, however, ate a 300-calorie breakfast while the other had a 600-calorie breakfast that included dessert.
During the first half of the study, both groups lost an average of 33 pounds. But the second half dramatically changed the game.
Whereas the low-carb breakfast group regained about 22 pounds, the dessert-for-breakfast group actually lost an additional 15 pounds, or a total of about 40 more pounds than the low-calorie breakfast group. What’s more, they kept off those pounds longer.
Researchers also noticed that unlike the smaller-breakfast group, the dessert-for-breakfast people “experienced few if any cravings for these foods later in the day.”
Here’s my opinion. The higher-calorie breakfast group lost more fat and kept it off not from eating chocolate cake, but because they ate a bigger breakfast, period. Numerous studies show people who eat a substantial breakfast are leaner and stay fuller throughout the morning.
A study in the American Journal of Nutrition, for instance, showed people who ate a hearty protein-based breakfast like a vegetable omelet were less likely to go down in that mid-morning box of Krispy Kremes their co-workers bring in than people who ate a bowl of Special K with skim milk.
Despite what these researchers claim, having that cheese Danish for breakfast can set you up for a metabolic disaster. For one, you’re going to have a blood sugar spike and crash that leaves you running for a Starbucks low-fat muffin and a grande latte about 10 a.m.
And how many people stop with just one doughnut? You’re more likely after you eat that Krispy Kreme (or whatever your breakfast indulgence includes) to say to hell with it and recklessly abandon your healthy eating the rest of the day.
And if you have any aspect of metabolic syndrome – and most of us do – dessert at breakfast will just exacerbate that insulin resistance and the host of problems that accompany it.
I’m not a fan of total deprivation, however, and I want to tell you about the next best thing to a chocolate milkshake for breakfast.
I love to toss a scoop of whey protein into the blender with some frozen berries along with some unsweetened coconut or almond milk and – bam! – I get a cold, creamy drink that isn’t a milkshake but is pretty rock and roll and far healthier.
But I don’t want you using one of those hulking store-bought tubs of whey, which are often packed with sugar, artificial sweeteners, trans fat, and other crap.
Whey Cool from Designs for Health, on the other hand, is the absolute best whey protein on the market. It’s non-denatured and low-temperature produced to protect the immune-boosting amino acids. And it comes loaded with 20 – 24 grams of the highest-quality protein in every scoop.
This is the whey protein I use every morning.
The milk used in this whey comes from grass-fed cows. Whey Cool also contains excellent amounts of the glutathione precursor cysteine, as well as other immune-boosting components like lactoferrin, immunoglobulins, and serum albumin.
Let’s talk taste. Unlike others on the market, Whey Cool doesn’t have a weird or chemical aftertaste. The natural chocolate and vanilla flavors are low in sugar and sweetened with xylitol and stevia, two beneficial sweeteners.
Best of all, a Whey Cool shake won’t send your blood sugar on a rollercoaster ride like that cheese Danish. The protein keeps you full and focused all morning, while the delicious flavors will satisfy your sweet tooth.
Check out Whey Cool and let me know if you agree that it’s the next best thing to a milkshake without the sugar crash.
