“Eating breakfast helps lose weight”
This is a common advice that is being echoed by many ‘experts’ in the media that is outdated and misleading!
In this series ‘weight loss secrets’ I am exposing some of the biggest lies and misconceptions that are being portrayed as ‘weight loss secrets’ by personal trainers and nutritionist alike.
Unfortunately many of these ideas have caught on and are now talked about on popular talk shows and featured in many diet books, which lead people astray from real solutions.
One of these lies is ‘eating breakfast helps lose weight’.
Eating breakfast to lose weight is OVERRATED!
Many studies, such as the one done by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, have been done in this area around the world and all the research suggests that breakfast has little to no affect on person’s weight and overall health.
Another study done by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared groups of people that eat vs. skip breakfast they found that there was no affect on their metabolism and weight.
In fact those that skip ‘the most important meal of the day’ tend to actually lose weight (not a common thought) in comparison to those that do eat breakfast. The Journal of Nutritional Science had the following observation:
Researchers from Columbia University in the US compared the effects on 36 overweight participants of eating a high-fibre breakfast (oats), a breakfast with minimal fibre (frosted corn flakes), and no breakfast at 8:30am each day over a four-week period. While we should expect evidence of weight loss in the people who had breakfast and weight gain in the people who skipped it, the team found that the only change in weight was experienced by the no-breakfast group. And they ended up losing it, not gaining it.
With all the evidence available to you it is clear that having breakfast does not give you an advantage over a fasted state when it comes to your weight loss goals despite what you may have heard on Dr. Oz or what you where taught in middle school.
The choice is yours!
I have clients that do eat breakfast and those that done.
And the variety of what people may have for breakfast varies a great deal!
If you like having breakfast than go for it, don’t listen to anyone that says that you should be skipping breakfast and on the contrary if you don’t like to eat first thing in the morning you don’t have to. Weather you eat or not won’t hinder your progress with your weight loss goals as so many of these ‘experts’ would have you belive.
What matters most is the overall context of your diet especially total calories taken in during the day. What or when you will not effect your results!
Just ask my clients!
Ruslan ‘Ottawa Weight Loss Expert’ Kedik