If you want to stay healthy and lose weight, you should breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper. In other words, eat most of your calories at the start of the day, and not the end.
But it’s an old saw that doesn’t have any grounding in science; in fact, it doesn’t matter much when in the day you eat your major meal, a new study has concluded.
The only merit of a big breakfast is you probably don’t feel hungry later in the day and so eat a lighter lunch and dinner, say researchers from the University of Aberdeen.
They gave 30 volunteers either a heavy breakfast or a heavy dinner every day for four weeks before switching the groups over. But it didn’t matter when they ate the most calories: energy expenditure and weight loss was the same for both groups, with all the participants losing an average of 3 kgs (7 lbs).
Even though there were no measurable differences, those who ate a big breakfast said they felt fuller and so could eat less the rest of the day.
Cell Metabolism, 2022; doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2022.08.001
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