4 Surprising Benefits Of Breakfast For Weight Loss

Breakfast is?widely known?as the most important meal of the day, especially in relation to weight loss. It’s not only a magazine or youtube tip, but a concept promoted by prestigious institutions such as?John Hopkins, NYU, and the?American Dietetic association.?

And indeed, this?meta-analysis?found that?skipping breakfast is strongly linked to obesity.?

How strongly? The P value in the meta-analysis was?10 to the power of 42!?P value refers to the chance of getting a result that extreme if in fact there really was no such effect. So the chances that the link between skipping breakfast and obesity is biased is equivalent to the chances of winning the lottery 5 times in a row and then getting struck and killed by lightning.?

Despite the general recommendation to eat breakfast, more than?? of American adults?are skipping this meal daily. In the?UK, around 15% of adults?are skipping their breakfast as well.?

In this article, we’re going to cover?4 surprising benefits?of breakfast for effective and sustainable weight loss. You’ve probably heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and now we’re going to understand why, using science. So if you’re currently skipping breakfast, and you’re also looking to lose weight and improve your health, this article is for you.

Moreover, we will share with you some?free, easy, healthy, and delicious recipes?for breakfast, that also boost weight loss.

1) Morning calories are less fattening than night calories

The principle of?chronobiology, in relation to weight loss, is fascinating. Chronobiology is the study of our body’s natural rhythm, and new discoveries in this field are challenging the traditional “calorie is a calorie” principle.?

It turns out that it’s not only about what we eat, but also about?when?we eat. Our bodies, apparently, process morning calories completely differently than evening calories. Yes, it’s groundbreaking, but the?same cookie is less fattening in the morning?compared to in the evening.?

It seems that in the last decades, our calorie intake might have shifted?towards a bigger portion of food later in the day. That may be one of the explanations for the obesity pandemic rise.?Some scientists?have even characterized obesity as a “chronobiological disease.”?

This?prospective study?of 6,764 people has shown that those who eat a bigger portion of their calories in the morning tend to be lighter and lose more weight than others who eat more at night.?

The most?fascinating research regarding chronobiology?and weight loss was actually conducted in Israel. Scientists?randomized overweight and obese women?into one of two isocaloric groups, meaning each group was given the same number of total calories. One group was given a 700-calorie breakfast, a 500-calorie lunch, and a 200-calorie dinner, and the other group was given the opposite—200 for breakfast, 500 for lunch, and 700 for dinner.?

Since they were all eating the same number of calories overall, one would assume that they will lose the same amount of weight, right? But no; the group who ate the most at breakfast?lost more than twice as much weight?as the group eating the most at the dinner meal. In addition to slimming nearly an extra two inches off their waistlines, by the end of the twelve-week study, the breakfast group lost 19 pounds compared to only 8 lost by the dinner group.?

11 pounds difference in only 12 weeks.?That’s the immense power chronobiology has on weight loss.?

When we eat breakfast regularly and shift a big portion of our calories to the morning, we can take advantage of this metabolic “hack” and lose weight more effectively.?

2) Breakfast boosts our physical activity level

One of the most common reasons people skip breakfast is to “save calories”. And in the first impression, it kind of makes sense- adding a 500-calorie breakfast to your daily intake might result in some serious weight gain. So wait, taking that into consideration, how come breakfast is good for overall calorie deficit and weight loss??

The Bath Breakfast Project, a famous series of experiments at the University of Bath, found the solution to this mystery. Subjects were selected either to fast until noon every day or to eat breakfast, which was defined as eating around 700 calories before 11:00 a.m. The breakfast group consumed a little fewer calories during the day but still ended up with hundreds of excess daily calories compared with those who had skipped breakfast.?

Surprisingly, after six weeks,?both groups ended up with the exact same change in body fat.

How is it possible that hundreds of calories vanished like that? Well, if the breakfast group had more calories going in, then there was probably a big change in the calories out section. And indeed, researchers discovered that the breakfast group members were?involved in more spontaneous physical activities, such as house cleaning, walking, and climbing the stairs. They didn’t do more exercise deliberately, they?naturally moved more.?

The interesting fact here is that those calories we burn by engaging in day-to-day activities (NEAT- non-exercise activity thermogenesis) have a much more profound effect on our weight and calorie balance compared with structured exercise, and breakfast comes in handy here.?

3) Breakfast improves our mood and reduces emotional eating

Now, let’s look at breakfast from a different angle, which is massively underestimated. Our?mental health. Many studies have shown that having a healthy breakfast can improve our mental health profoundly.?

For example,?this study?of more than 120 subjects found that Individuals who consumed a cereal breakfast each day were?less depressed, less emotionally distressed, and had lower levels of perceived stress than those who did not eat breakfast each day.?

Moreover,?this cross-sectional study?of more than?20,000 students worldwide?found that?skipping breakfast?was associated with “ depression, lower happiness, posttraumatic stress disorder, loneliness, short sleep, long sleep, sleep problem, restless sleep, sleep problem due to traumatic event, and poor academic performance”

Now, the question is, how is this connected with more efficient weight loss??

Well, our mental state affects what we eat. We’re humans, and we eat with our emotions. When we feel stressed, we want to eat. When we feel anxious, or lonely, we want to eat.?

And usually, and this mental state, who really wants to have broccoli or a salad? We will gravitate toward fattening foods like ice cream, crisps, and chocolate. On those occasions, we crave those unhealthy foods because they provide us with instant relief from the suffering we experience, and distract us from the way we feel.?

Moreover,?when we feel good and happy, we are more gravitated toward taking healthy decisions and we have more motivation to keep up with our healthy habits.?

Try to think about those hectic mornings, when you only have coffee but nothing to eat- every challenge we face is more stressful and harder to cope with. From a personal standpoint, when I’m skipping breakfast I tend to be irritated more easily, I’m not relaxed, and I will crave unhealthy foods more frequently during the day.?

4) It’s the easiest meal to follow consistently

This point is especially relevant for busy individuals who work in the office, executives who attend business lunch/dinner frequently, and entrepreneurs who fly often.?

Simply put,?breakfast is the easiest meal of the day. During the day, many things stand in the way between us and “perfect” nutrition. Meetings, flights, restaurants- it’s definitely harder to follow a diet perfectly.?

But in the morning, we have a golden chance to follow our plan perfectly, and to have a small but important win. I see this pattern with my clients all the time- breakfast is the simplest meal to execute. Not only when you’re home- but even on vacations and business travels- having a healthy and weight-loss-promoting breakfast is a very feasible action.???

So, if you’re about to embark on your weight loss and health journey but time is in scarcity for you, beginning with a healthy breakfast is useful. When our clients start their journey, one of the first habits we teach is breakfast, before anything else, because it’s so simple and effective.??

My recommendation, especially if you’re a busy individual, is to choose 1-2 “go-to” recipes for breakfast. When you have the same breakfast every day, you reduce your “decision fatigue” that usually elevates throughout the day.?

Breakfast should be simple, quick (5 min max), delicious, high in low glycemic index carbs, rich in fruits, low in fat, and satiating enough.

? The Bottom Line

If you're looking to begin or just enhance your weight loss journey, starting with a healthy breakfast would be a very wise decision. The evidence, as you've noticed, shows that having a healthy breakfast gives us serious weight loss advantages, some of them are obvious and some are surprising.

After working with hundreds of busy individuals on their health and weight, I can assure you that there's a reason why most parents tell their kids that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day".

Now, I promised to give you some recipes.

? We've created a free pdf, with 3 easy, delicious, and simple recipes for breakfast, that help with weight loss, higher energy, and health.

???Just like the article, or send me a message via LinkedIn, and I will send you the pdf for free!

See you next week, Noam