How Is Dark Chocolate Helpful in Building Muscle or Weight Loss?
You’d better eat dark chocolate every day
Many people believe that sweet, delicious food cannot be healthy. You shouldn’t divide food into bad or good. It’s better to look at the pleasure and nutrients received from food. Today I’ll tell you about the beneficial properties of dark chocolate.
Bitter chocolate tastes great. But it’s also helpful in losing weight and building muscle. Dark chocolate owes its magical properties to epicatechin. It’s a natural substance — flavonoids in cocoa beans.
The darker the chocolate and the less processed it is, the higher the concentration of flavonoids in it.
The benefits from dark chocolate don’t apply to milk chocolate and varieties with cocoa less than 70%. You’ll better look for chocolate without alkali treatment. Alkalization reduces the concentration of flavonoids by 60% and more.
The healing properties of epicatechin are a hot topic of recent research. In the beginning, epicatechin is a powerful antioxidant. Studies show that it reduces the risk of stroke, cancer, and certain metabolic disorders such as diabetes.
Dark chocolate is helpful for men who want to gain muscle mass, and women, as a rule, seeking to lose weight.
HOW IS DARK CHOCOLATE HELPFUL IN LOSING WEIGHT?
Makes you happy
Let’s talk about endorphins. How does chocolate make us feel? Pleasure? Science has confirmed that the intake of chocolate improves mood, relieves, smoothes the feeling of anxiety. When you receive this delicacy, your body produces endorphins.
Our organism realizes large amounts of serotonin when you indulge in dark chocolate. Some of the effects of serotonin:
- relieves stress,
- positively affects sleep and appetite,
- creates a sense of pleasure.
There’s no equal relationship between the amount of chocolate eaten and the received pleasure.
Makes the appetite stand on the sidelines
Dark chocolate stimulates the production of ghrelin. It’s a hormone that suppresses appetite by transmitting satiety signals to the brain. It helps you avoid overeating.
Makes your blood flow a bit sour
Insulin is responsible for removing glucose from the bloodstream. It triggers protein synthesis in muscle cells.
Excessive concentration of insulin leads to insulin resistance. It prevents the removal of glucose from the blood flow. This condition can lead to a variety of serious illnesses such as diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
Epicatechin, found in large quantities in dark chocolate, accelerates glucose excretion. Also, it increases insulin sensitivity by stabilizing blood glucose levels.
ENHANCED MUSCLE GROWTH
Boost your Nitro after training
Flavonoids increase nitric oxide levels by inhibiting the enzymes that break down nitric oxide. It’s so beneficial because it stimulates the growth of satellite cells. They repair damaged muscle tissue after high-intensity training.
The significance of this property increases with age. With age, the production of satellite cells decreases. It slows down muscle tissue recovery after damage.
Bring to balance your proteins
Myostatin is a protein that inhibits muscle growth and differentiation and stops hypertrophy. Suppression of myostatin leads to a significant acceleration of muscle growth. Myostatin has an antagonist: it’s follistatin, a regulatory protein that suppresses myostatin signals.
Both proteins act on each other until they achieve homeostasis (balance in the body). As a result, there is notable muscle growth for which athletes are striving.
Recent studies have shown that,
The consumption of dark chocolate stimulates the production of follistatin. Myostatin levels naturally decrease, and this accelerates muscle growth.
BITTER CHOCOLATE INCREASES YOUR…
Curious feature for the elderly
Flavonoids from natural cocoa beans increase blood flow. It works like the popular pharmaceutical drug Viagra. In other words, cocoa acts as a natural vasodilator and helps to maintain sexual activity for longer.
You go hard and don’t go home
Long-term endurance training isn’t for everyone. But if you love exercising, you have to know — epicatechin stimulates vasodilation. It brings to increased blood flow and circulation, lower blood pressure, and improved athletic performance.
HOW MUCH DARK CHOCOLATE DO YOU NEED?
For a general health effect, the daily dose of dark chocolate can be about 1 ounce (30 grams). It would be best for you to remember that 100 g of dark chocolate has 550 kcal. Dark chocolate must contain at least 70–85% cocoa.
If you are losing weight, you can reduce this dosage and vice versa:
- for muscle mass and strength growth, you can increase the dosage to 30–60 grams of dark chocolate per day.
- for weight loss, it’s better to decrease up to 30 grams
By the way, you can get epicatechin from dark chocolate and a sports supplement.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Dark chocolate’s reputation is changing because of more data on the benefits of flavonoids. It’s not only a sweet delicacy but also a valuable product for the body.
The prospects for dark chocolate and epicatechin look bright. Still, research on these substances is ongoing. If you want to consume dark chocolate to accelerate muscle growth, the rest of the diet should contribute to this goal.
For you is better to keep track of calories and protein and expect dark chocolate to do the job for you.
Thank you for reading.
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