Fit women love chocolate, some more than sex

October 26, 4:12 PMFitness ExaminerStefan Pinto

Previous Next

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Fitness Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Legend has it that Montezuma drank 50 cups of chocolate a day prior to his medieval dates with 600 women. And to think, you thought all he was responsible for was enacting revenge. In fact, the first people to convert beans into a spicy chocolate drink were natives of Central America, specifically the ascendants of Mexicans. “It’s an historic food and a source of mood enhancers for many people and societies — especially ladies.” according to Neil Edley, professional chocolatier with a candy company called Sugar Plum Chocolates based in Forty Fort, Pennsylvania. “Just as a cat’s evolution designed its olfactory senses to delight in catnip, women and chocolate have a natural chemical harmony like no other.

Carrie Toppano, Director of Sales & Operations of Sweet Beauty Spa, an organic chocolate spa in Seattle taught me that dark chocolate has twice the antioxidants of red wine and four times the antioxidants in green tea. This is why dark chocolate is commonly attributed to being healthier over milk chocolate. Toppano advises that “If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t wear it on your skin.”

The ideal solution would be a healthy chocolate, that helps us to not get fat and puts us in a good mood. According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, “chocolate contains anandamide like ice-creams and other positive neurotransmitters such as oleolethanolamine and N-linoleoylethanolamine, caffeine and theobromine. All these chemicals have been determined to have active psychological effects.” Fact is, even if fit women were to find the guy of her dreams, it wouldn’t matter since most of you seem to prefer chocolate over sex. Irony is chocolate is actually an aphrodisiac.

A recent article in the Calgary Herald, stated that many women beat themselves up both internally and physically, "feeling our thighs and tummy after indulging in our favorite chocolate dessert." The author, a man, cited that "when push comes to shove, so to speak, women prefer chocolate over sex." I asked three experts including psychologists, chocolateries and far-from-regular women. Here is what some said:

What type of woman would prefer chocolate over sex?

Amy Reiley, author of Fork Me, Spoon Me: the Sensual Cookbook: I don’t know that any woman would ever prefer chocolate over sex 100% of the time—unless she’s a nun, of course!

Neil Edley, Chocolatier, Sugar Plum Chocolates: A female connoisseur with remarkably good taste! A woman who is content with herself, who subscribes to the adage that a girl without guy is like a fish without a bicycle! A woman who knows that perfect sex can be rare and a perfect man even rarer; one who finds as much fun in tasting samples at Maison Chocolate as she does in bedding a male of her choosing. When the choices facing the refined female are: being with someone mediocre or reaching for the chocolate, a wise woman will opt for the truffles every time.

Susie Norris, author of Chocolate Bliss a book about the health and medical benefits of chocolate: Women over 30 – they’ve had enough sex to know chocolate takes the cake !

According to Italian research, women who eat chocolate regularly have a better sex life. The researchers were urologists, by the way.

Neil Edley: I would be somewhat suspicious of studies of this nature surveyed by urologists. Not to detract from their medical discipline but maybe such data is best researched and assembled by Ob-Gyn’s, behavioral psychiatrists and skilled sex researchers specializing in female sexuality. Urologists perform a valuable medical service but sex has many complexities and is about more than just genital plumbing.  Female sexuality is particularly intricate and has much to do with positive concepts of body and self, hormonal interplay, personal freedom, emotional well-being and asserting the right to pleasure without fear.  If chocolate helps the ladies get there then by all means, chow down!

Susie Norris: Because chocolate is so packed with nutrients, it has provided stamina
to Maya traders, Aztec warriors, ladies of the royal courts of Europe, American WWII soldiers & romantics on Valentine’s Day.  Chocolate certainly contributes to endurance and that is sexy.

It seems that overly fit women, are also invariably single. Why do you think this is?

Amy Reiley: I’m not sure what “overly fit” would be. I know a lot of women who love exercise and are in happy relationships.

Neil Edley: Over the last 50 years, the advances that women have made on every societal front are practically a major turn on the wheel of evolution. Like most pioneers in human behavior, the ones out front command a lonely but courageous vision of the future. For them there’s no going back (not even for chocolate). As for the sisters in the overly fit group, men still have this thing that anything “girly” or female is shame-based and is to be disdained.  They have a false image of themselves as the “stars” of a relationship while the woman takes second place and the role of the adoring “audience.”  Nothing puts a cold wind up their shorts like a strong woman who can outdo them on the press bench and in many other life areas.

Susie Norris: I’ve never seen statistics on this and don’t find it empirically true – especially in Los Angeles.

What do you think is a top mistake women make when it comes to body image and what they think men want?

Amy Reiley: It would do every woman a world of good to listen to what men have to say about them. If a man finds a woman attractive, he’s usually pretty free with the compliments and, at least in my personal experience, these compliments often vary wildly with a woman’s personal body image goals and/or how women talk among woman about their bodies.

Neil Edley: Beauty is a short-lived and risky currency. You only have to look at the breast implant scandals to see how far this damaging brain-washing goes. Women have been taught to even risk surgery and their lives so men and society will approve of them. It’s a grotesque legacy to bequeath to our daughters.

Susie Norris: Women underestimate the value of good humor and sensuality.