Food cravings are the downfall of many dieters, who feel locked in an eternal battle with their willpower to resist the tempting sweets, snacks and other foods they love.
- Illinois News Bureau
However, researchers in food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign say in a new study that eating dessert may be the optimal strategy for losing weight, keeping it off and keeping cravings at bay. Dieters in a clinical trial who incorporated craved foods into a balanced meal plan lost more weight during the 12-month weight-loss program and their cravings remained minimal through the subsequent 12 months of maintenance.
Then-graduate student Nouf W. Alfouzan and nutrition professor Manabu T. Nakamura, who published their findings in the journal Physiology and Behavior, said that dieters' food cravings decreased while losing weight and remained minimal as long as they did not regain weight. The participants were part of a larger project conducted with physicians at Carle Clinic in Urbana, Illinois, that aimed to broaden the outreach of an in-person weight-loss program called the Individualized Dietary Improvement Program by converting it to an online format called EMPOWER.
