Looking to improve your fitness and endurance? Have this sweat treat!

Chocoholics rejoice! There is finally a chocolate which is looked at as healthy and helpful for physical fitness nourishment. The healthy dark chocolate tastes and looks like the chocolate individuals understand and adore, however has some differences that makes it diabetic - and vegan-friendly, perfect for physical fitness nutrition.

Recent studies have shown that dark chocolate can have a positive effect on a person’s athletic performance and endurance. In fact, these studies have stated that it may help give athletes an extra edge in their fitness training.

The man behind the discovery was Dr Diederik Esser, a researcher involved in the work from Division of Human Nutrition in Netherlands and published his findings in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal.

Esser and colleagues analysed 44 middle aged overweight men over two periods of four weeks as they consumed 70 grams of chocolate per day. Study participants received either specially produced dark chocolate with high flavanol content or chocolate that was regularly produced. Both chocolates had a similar cocoa mass content. Before and after both intervention periods, researchers performed a variety of measurements that are important indicators of vascular health, with dark chocolate being the healthy option.

“We provide a more complete picture of the impact of chocolate consumption in vascular health and show that increasing flavanol content has no added beneficial effect on vascular health. However, this increased flavanol content clearly affected taste and thereby the motivation to eat these chocolates. So the dark side of chocolate is a healthy one." Dr Esser claims.

So there you have it, if you ever feel like an extra hit of energy without feeling guilty, help yourself to some dark chocolate!

The best part of my job as a Conference Production Manager is to create and manage my own conferences from concept to delivery, identify future conference topics as well as giving me a chance to expand my business card collection. Having a bit of a sweet tooth, you will always find me having lollies on my desk or you will catch me browsing on fashion sites during lunch breaks.