Study: Is Breakfast Necessary For Weight Loss?

The study concludes that “reduced breakfast energy intake is associated with lower total daily intake.” Therefore overweight people should consider reducing breakfast calories “as a simple option to improve their daily energy balance.”

But what about endurance athletes looking to drop a few pounds?

“This study is disturbing to me because I don’t want people thinking that this is a good thing—working out without eating breakfast to lower their body fat,” said Florida-based sports nutritionist Barbara Lewin, who has worked with ultra-athletes Terri Schneider, Michael Wardian and Katy Cotton. “You’re going to break down lean body mass—your own muscle—and be too depleted in glycogen to work out the next day,” she said.

A 2003 study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology concluded that skipping breakfast “is associated with a significantly higher risk of obesity,” and that breakfast skippers are 4.5 times more likely to become obese than regular breakfast eaters.

So who’s right? Lewin lauds the breakfast eaters. “From many years of studying athletes, we know that breakfast eaters tend to have a lower BMI and that they tend to be leaner.

“Food is fuel, and the idea of not eating breakfast, to me, is just crazy,” said Lewin.

Training for something? Better fuel up.