X calories in chocolate versus X calories in jelly beans

impromark
impromark Posts: 119 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm not sure if this is at all backed up by [science], but a while back I decided to substitute all snacks chocolate with the equivalent calories in gelatin-type snacks, mostly jelly beans. To my surprise, I seem to be doing better with the latter, whereas chocolates seemed to impede the weight loss (even if I'm still within my daily limit).

My inner brain wants to say that jelly beans, being just gelatinized liquids, are more easily eliminated from the system as it just breaks down and is passed quicker. This versus the more solid snackables like chocolate, which are composed of more solids and thus take more "effort" from the body to work out / off.

Again I have only my observations to go on, and a simple internet search doesn't seem to support anything. But has anyone noticed anything like this? I'm not about to swear off a given snack food, but the mind does wonder...

Mark

Replies

  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,336 Member
    How precisely did you measure this difference?
  • impromark
    impromark Posts: 119 Member
    The "experiment" was in the amount of weight lost getting back to a maintenance level. I generally reserve a block of my calorie allotment for "open snacks", from a start point after a period of weight gain (in my case, when I'm off counting and focused workouts for a week-long conference, which happens several times a year). Not counting the inevitable water weight that comes with that sort of binge (and travel to get to said conferences), I specifically tried using that allotment up with jelly beans versus chocolate (or chips as another option). In both months I did this, the excess weight indeed seemed to come off faster, getting me back to a maintenance zone quicker. Everyone's mileage may vary, which is why I'm asking about everyone's mileage. :)

    Mark
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,266 Member
    Way too many variables to even imagine a single food would be attributed to that..

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