It is Easter weekend, a time when most people will have a Chocolate egg or two, including myself. I am not a huge fan of banning food groups or vilifying foods. For me, any successful body transformation / plan of action has the ability to get you the results you want and the freedom to enjoy any food.
To achieve both, it is simply about the threshold of your consumption and how you adjust your energy balance to ensure results. I got myself down to 4% body fat in my bodybuilding days and I did not eliminate chocolate nor any particular food group. I have seen many clients get results using a similar approach.
Moderation works, but achieving moderation is not as simple as most people make out. To get into this ideal balance, a few factors need to be considered. One is ensuring that your base nutrition plan doesn’t produce cravings. Alongside this, you should work on breaking some of your automatic connections to chocolate, as well as finding other foods to turn to when you are feeling stressed. That’s the essence of creating balance around any so called bad behaviour. The final element to add in, is simply picking the best options around chocolate when you are going to have it.
For the sake of this argument, we can simply assume the chocolate with highest taste vs the lowest calories is the best choice. Below you will see the calories within chocolate in order, you can then simply select the one which has the lowest calories which you like the most. Scroll below the video to see photos and article.
It is important to remember though that just because one chocolate bar may have twice the calorie content of another, if you eat two of them you would have eaten the same amount. This list is from going into the local supermarket and getting a selection of chocolate there. If I have missed some then let me know, they didn’t have every chocolate bar there. Note, I did not include dark chocolate in this list.
Less Than 150 Calories – These bars are mostly aimed at children, hence the lower calories per bar. These include Dairy Milk Freddo, Dairy Milk Children’s bar and Milky Bar
150 – 200 calories – The bars are not aimed at children per se but are not solid chocolate neither so this brings down the calorie content. These include Crunchie and Malteaser Teaser bar
200 – 250 calories- This bracket contains the majority of chocolate bars as most are designed to fall within this range, these include Milk Buttons, Twirl, Mars Bar, Dairy Milk, Kit Kat Crunchy, Twix.
250 – 300 calories – These higher end calorie bars include bounty and Yorkie which tops the list!
300 + calories – Most ‘normal’ sized bars are below 300 calories but when you start getting king size products or extra sized you fall into this range.
What This Means For You
If you want to have a chocolate bar you can use the above data to evaluate which you like the most vs the calorie content in the chart above. If your favourite bar is not in the chart then just compare where it would have been placed by reading the information on the side of the packet. With Easter Eggs you can apply the same approach, you will find there is a large difference in food content from one to the other.
If you want to stop chocolate all together then check out my article on How To Quit Sugar>>>.
*********************
Need Support Getting In Shape?
For support, coaching, nutrition and exercise plans wherever you are in the world read more here>>>>
For personal training in London Zones 1 – 2 read more here>>>>
**********************
London Nutritionist- For Nutritionist Consultations in London please contact me. I am available across London Zones 1 & 2. London is the UK’s capital city and home to over 8 million Londoners and many Nutritionists work in London.