With our busy modern lifestyles, a lot of people skip breakfast in the morning or because they believe it will help them lose weight. But it is really true? To find out, scientists at the University of Bath launched the Bath Breakfast Project. In the Bath Breakfast Project we compared individuals who were asked to fast every day until lunchtime, with individuals who had a prescribed breakfast every day.
And what we found is that those individuals who had fasted expended fewer calories over the day, and in particular in the morning, than those individuals who had had breakfast. And so this may go some way to explaining why skipping breakfast might not predict the kind of weight loss you would expect.
Of course when we think of the implications of a study like this often we would immediately think “should we just have or skip breakfast for a certain weight loss or health gain goal?” But in fact by measuring the mechanisms, not only do we understand the problem better, but we can be more sensitive in our application of this study.
So if we know for example by skipping breakfast you might be less active, you could use that information to say “have breakfast and subconsciously I will be more active” or we could use the information intelligently to say that “if I skip breakfast I will just be aware of my propensity to be less active” and try insert activity elsewhere in my day.
In terms of the evidence that we have accumulated in last year or so, then I think it is fair to say that skipping breakfast alone as a weight lose strategy is ineffective.
If you would like more information about meal planning for fat loss, THIS COULD BE VERY HELPFUL!
