Breakfast Does a Body Good

Eating a big breakfast consisting of high carbohydrates and protein first thing in morning and then following a low-carb, low-calorie diet for the rest of the day helps maintain a healthy weight loss according to yet another study.

Researchers from the Hospital de Clinicas in Caracas, Venezuela say eating a big breakfast packed with protein and carbohydrates helps cut cravings for sweet or starchy foods throughout the day. It also boosts the metabolism. But for those of you who are regular readers of this blog, this is nothing new. Breakfast has long been touted as the most important meal of the day, particularly for those who want to lose weight.

Scientists added that this way of eating also helps people lose weight in the long term as opposed to crash diets, which are effective in losing weight fast but when stopped, results in immediate weight gain.

Researchers looked at how breakfasting habits affected the weight of almost 100 obese young women by putting them on a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet. Half of the subjects had a big breakfast, taking in almost 1,240 calories in a single high-protein, high-carbohydrate meal for nearly eight months.

After nearly four months, the women eating small breakfasts had lost an average of around 5 pounds more than the women who ate high calorie breakfast. However, after eight months, the women who ate small breakfasts had regained an average of 18 pounds of weight.

The women who ate healthy, high calorie big breakfasts, on the other hand, continued to lose weight, shedding another 16.5 ponds on average. The researchers concluded that at the end of the study, the big breakfast eaters had lost more than 21 per cent of their body weight compared with just 4.5 per cent for the other women.

The big-breakfast diet also helps in losing weight in a healthy way than an extremely low-carbohydrate diet because it allows people to eat more fruit and therefore get enough fiber and vitamins, the researchers noted.