Ever since I was a little girl, I learnt how important it was for me to eat breakfast. I was told it wakes up my metabolism, gives me energy throughout the day and helps me burn more calories.
What I hadn’t been told was that, in fact, most research shows that breakfast won’t really make a significant impact on fat loss, whether you choose to eat it or not.
A recent study assigned participants to two groups – a fasting group and a breakfast group. After six weeks, nothing much happened.
The results showed that the people who ate breakfast were more active throughout the day, but all they were doing was burning off some of the calories they had eaten for breakfast. The extra physical activity didn’t lead to any fat being lost.
Breakfast didn’t impact resting metabolism and didn’t lead to any fat loss.
So, what can we learn from this study?
That skipping breakfast will not automatically increase your risk of gaining fat and eating breakfast will not automatically make you drop the pounds.
Personally, I choose to eat breakfast because I feel it helps my concentration and gives me energy to start my day. My husband, on the other hand, chooses to just have a cup of coffee in the morning because eating so early makes him feel sick.
There’s nothing wrong with either choice. It’s all down to individual preference. Whether you eat breakfast or not is irrelevan. What is important is doing what feels right for you by listening to your body and mind.
If you do want to lose fat, the essential thing it to eat in a very small calorie deficit, meaning eating a couple hundred less calories than you burn throughout the day.