Eating Breakfast And Weight Loss: New Study Finds That Not Eating Breakfast Might Actually Help Losing Weight

Collectively, it has always been said that eating breakfast and weight loss go together, under the assumption that if a person skips a meal, the body will become hungrier and then will need to eat even more calories to balance out the ones that it lost; however, a new study has shown that not eating breakfast and weight loss can really go hand in hand.

A new research at Cornell University has shown that the long-standing idea that eating breakfast and weight loss is actually just a myth. The study's senior author, David Levitsky, states: "There's a fundamental belief that if you don't eat breakfast, you will compensate for the lost calories at lunch or later in the day. We've found that there is no caloric compensation in a normal group of eaters. If you skip breakfast, you may be hungrier, but you won't eat enough calories to make up for the lost breakfast."

In other words, eating breakfast and weight loss aren't necessarily the closest friends. Skipping a meal (such as breakfast) will just mean the person will be hungrier when it is time for the next one, however, it won't make them eat more than they would have otherwise.

The way the study was set, a group of volunteers was separated in two groups and those were either fed or not fed breakfast. Throughout the rest of the day, researchers observed just how much either group ate in subsequent meals - and the observation showed that, while those who skipped breakfast came to lunch hungrier, they didn't really eat more at lunch or at any other meal than their counterparts. In fact, since they had skipped a meal, they were shown to consume an average of 408 less calories a day.

However, as CNN points out, the study only measured caloric intake and not energy level, metabolism or cognitive function between both groups.

As this study shows, not eating breakfast and weight loss could actually be a potential strategy for those who need to lose a few pounds, even if it goes wildly against common beliefs.

Real Time Analytics