As improbable as it sounds, researchers have found that a low-calorie meal plan that includes dessert with breakfast may help dieters.

Scientists randomized 144 obese people, ages 20 to 65, to two low-carbohydrate diets providing 1,400 daily calories for women and 1,600 for men. The diets were identical except that one included a high-carbohydrate, protein-enriched breakfast with a choice of cookies, chocolate, cake or ice cream for dessert.

Throughout the study, which appears in the March 10 issue of the journal Steroids, participants were tested periodically for blood levels of insulin, glucose, lipid and ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates appetite.

During an initial 16-week period, the average weight loss in each group was identical — about 32 pounds. But over a 16-week follow-up, people on the dessert-with-breakfast diet lost an additional 13 pounds on average, while the others gained back all but 3.5 of the pounds they had lost.