There was an article earlier this week in “The Wall Street Journal” about chocolate companies making their product more available.

It literally pointed to the fact that the more outlets, grocery stores, convenience stores, etc., that carried premium chocolate, the more that was sold.

People, WHEN are you going to learn that eating chocolate on a regular basis does nothing but expand your size AND the wallet of the chocolate manufacturers.

Yes, chocolate possesses antioxidants, but so do fruits and vegetables, tea, coffee, etc. Chocolate should be a treat.

I’m having people over for dinner tonight, about 10 in total, and I bought 2 bars, one dark and one milk chocolate, at Trader Joes. We will each have a square from each bar, and that’s IT.

Think about it. Are you eating food just because they are more readily available? If you are, stop it and watch the scale go south.

Jim

This has been the subject of controversy for some time. I have ALWAYS been a fan of low-fat dairy for weight loss and specifically, abdominal fat loss. Now, new research from McMaster University concurs.

Research looks at 3 groups of premenopausal women and split them up by:

1. Low dairy

2. Medium diary

3. High diary

With there three groups, they also split them up with some consuming high protein and some low protein.

Over four months, there was identical weight loss. BUT, the higher-protein, higher-diary group lose MORE whole body and abdominal fat and achieved greater lean mass and strength than the lower-protein, lower-dairy groups.

Specifically, the lower-protein, lower-diary group LOST 1.5 pounds of muscle, whereas the higher-protein, higher-diary group GAINED 1.5 pounds. That’s a 3 pound difference.

We KNOW that more muscle maintains and increases your metabolism, so these results are exactly in line with my theory on weight loss AND maintaining the loss.

NOTE – the people only strength trained in the study twice a week. I know if it had been more, they would have lost even MORE fat and gained even MORE muscle.

Let’s hear it for dairy, protein and strength training.

Jim