Contrary to popular belief, breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. In fact, omitting breakfast, as part of an intermittent fasting schedule, can have many important health benefits, from improving your insulin/leptin sensitivity to helping your body more effectively burn fat for fuel.
Longer bouts of fasting have also been shown to have potent health benefits, including the regeneration of your immune system, as demonstrated in recent research.
In the past, it was believed that skipping breakfast might hinder weight loss, or even make you gain weight, but recent research demonstrates there’s no truth to this theory. As noted by David Allison, senior investigator of the featured study and director of the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center:
“The field of obesity and weight loss is full of commonly held beliefs that have not been subjected to rigorous testing; we have now found that one such belief does not seem to hold up when tested. This should be a wake-up call for all of us to always ask for evidence about the recommendations we hear so widely offered.”
Eating Breakfast Doesn’t Aid Weight Loss Efforts
The featured study divided 309 overweight and obese but otherwise healthy adults into two random groups. Some were told to eat breakfast, while the others were told to skip it.
The researchers specifically wanted to find out whether eating or not eating breakfast had any impact on weight loss. After 16 weeks, the researchers found no difference in weight loss between the groups. In essence, it didn’t matter if they ate breakfast or not.
It’s worth noting that they didn’t control the food intake of any of the participants. Most likely, the reason why there was no notable weight loss difference between those who ate breakfast and those who didn’t, is that they may all have been eating an overall inappropriate diet, as most Americans do.
After all, if you’re eating large amounts of refined carbs and processed fructose throughout the day, skipping breakfast may not be enough to achieve weight loss, as this type of diet actively prevents your body from effectively burning fat.
