To ask if this is bollocks or not re chocolate eating

[wineoclockthanks]

A friend has decided to start healthy eating (and lose weight) but still has a stash of Christmas chocolate.

She has read somewhere that if you eat it all in one sitting you are less likely to put on weight than if you eat it over a few days.

Surely this can't be right can it? Anyone know?

Yes she will as she'll throw up shortly afterwards! Lol

@TigerOnATrain - Consuming said choccy is no hardship for her and she's still got some left because she is a teacher and got loads of goodies from school and has been rationing it since then.

If the use of 'friend' is to imply it's actually me, I have 2 teenagers, the chance of me getting any goodies in my house is tiny, hence the reason I was so keen to help her with hers

Ha! I asked this exact thing on MN about 10 years ago!
Flash back.

(It was for me though not a friend)

I had this dilemma. I told my OH that I really wanted to try the Cadbury’s choccolatte - He bought me a wholesale box of 24 huge bars for Christmas, just as I’d decided to try and lose weight.

I kept one bar and donated the rest to the cadets’ tuck shop, to help them raise funds.

I did ask OH first!

@confusedandemployed sorry, what kind of bollocks is it? 😂

It makes sense insofar as if she eats it all in one go, she will have one binge and only gain so much weight. However, surely the better alternative would be to eat so little daily (like, 20 calories) that it doesn't add to her daily intake much at all. Easier said than done, mind!

Well it would give me the shits if I ate it all at once so less would be absorbed I assume?

@AgathavanHelsing I wrote what I said out loud 😂. But I stand by my (eventual) point. Unless you throw up of course.

Wouldn’t you just feel sick though, regardless of whether it’s “better” calories wise.

Some of us have never felt sick from eating too much chocolate. I get sick from motion, stress, but not from eating. I was embarrassingly old before I realised it was a real thing, I thought it was part of the bullshit that adults spout.

Although as a pp said, it can 'go right through you'. That might reduce the calories?

@TotHappy - actually not bollocks at all. Cocoa is one of those plants that contains oxalic acid, which binds with calcium, and stops it being absorbed.

But it's still worth drinking for the tons of other nutrients in the cocoa powder itself!

Oh! @Love51 I thought I was the only one! Marshmallows can make me feel sick very quickly, but I'm not sure I've ever felt sick from chocolate. I can eat hideous amounts.

Re OP, I agree with the PP who said that if you eat all the chocolate in one go, you might have it instead of meals, thereby consuming less overall calories.

Nonsense. If you eat a little at a time you will never put on weight.

I've heard this about sugar on teeth, which makes sense.

The cocoa thing sounds wrong, it's iron absorption which can be inhibited by dairy and tannins, not calcium. And even then it's not the case that you'll get none. Just like the myth that drinking coke causes you to wee out more water than you've taken in from it!

But it's not a myth, Bertie, it's not about the dairy preventing absorption, it's the cocoa - maybe my post needs clarifying.

No I read your post correctly, I just thought she was mistaken as I'd never heard of it that way around. I could definitely be the one who is mistaken - I don't claim to know everytging about cocoa!

I've seen a cycling training experiment that showed for carbs the body has a general upper limit of 360 Calories per hour. The rest just enters your gut and reappears later.

I've read about this once but it was about oysters and cholesterol

If she ate the amount of chocolate a ‘stash’ implies then maybe no weight would go on as it would just be coming out the other end fairly quickly !
For some people lots chocolate is like a laxative. A bit like sugar free polo mints (although they carry a warning not to eat more than a few packs, or they used too )

No, she's wrong. If you eat 3500 calories extra in a day or 500 calories extra a day for a week then that's an extra 3500 calories that week and you will put on 1lb.

If you eat 3500 calories extra in a day or 500 calories extra a day for a week then that's an extra 3500 calories that week and you will put on 1lb.

Only if you also have exactly the same excretions, exactly the same internal chemical processes, exactly the same exertion and exactly the same temperature fluctuations. But, as plenty of people have already pointed out, when you eat a LOT of chocolate in one go, it affects at least one of those very obviously, and I'd guess it actually affects all of them.

Calories in > calories out = put on weight
Calories in < calories out = lose weight
Calories in = calories out = stay the same

So if you eat 3000 calories in a week of chocolate on top of your normal calories you will put on weight. If you have 20 calories of chocolate a day within your calorie allowance to lose or maintain weight you will lose or maintain weight.

(I have already eaten mine but hopefully within at least maintenance calories.

I don't know the science of it, but I still have lots of Christmas chocolate in the house, and just have one small snack each evening and it's working absolutely fine.

Tell your "friend" to download MyFitnessPal and calorie count. It really does work :). That way she can have whatever she likes, so long as it fits.

I think it's true as your body can't absorb it all in one go so some ends up going straight through. Except in my case when I binge I then can't stop myself getting more later in the week anyway...