So - I went out, and searched on 'weight loss breakfast study' and the results are MOST interesting. For the studies/articles that were fully listed online, I've provided links. My commentary on the studies and how they relate to me follows.
http://www.obesityresearch.org/cgi/content/full/10/2/78
Objective: To examine breakfast consumption in subjects maintaining a weight loss in the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR).
Research Methods and Procedures: A cross-sectional study in which 2959 subjects in the NWCR completed demographic and weight history questionnaires as well as questions about their current breakfast consumption. All subjects had maintained a weight loss of at least 13.6 kg (30 lb) for at least 1 year; on average these subjects had lost 32 kg and kept it off for 6 years.
Results: A large proportion of NWCR subjects (2313 or 78%) reported regularly eating breakfast every day of the week. Only 114 subjects (4%) reported never eating breakfast. There was no difference in reported energy intake between breakfast eaters and non-eaters, but breakfast eaters reported slightly more physical activity than non-breakfast eaters (p = 0.05).
Discussion: Eating breakfast is a characteristic common to successful weight loss maintainers and may be a factor in their success
My Comments: The main thing I pulled from this one is that people who tend to expend more energy, tended to eat breakfast. Which makes sense, because I know that when I'm lifting, I usually NEED something in the morning, because I'll wake up hungry. I also noticed that the abstract finished off just saying that breakfast MAY be a factor in keeping the weight off. I'm thinking the physical activity helped more than breakfast did.
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/127/1/75
The purpose of this study was to determine whether meal ingestion pattern [large morning meals (AM) vs. large evening meals (PM)] affects changes in body weight, body composition or energy utilization during weight loss. Ten women completed a metabolic ward study of 3-wk weight stabilization followed by 12 wk of weight loss with a moderately energy restricted diet [mean energy intake ± SD = 107 ± 6 kJ/(kg·d)] and regular exercise. The weight loss phase was divided into two 6-wk periods. During period 1, 70% of daily energy intake was taken as two meals in the AM (n = 4) or in the PM (n = 6). Subjects crossed over to the alternate meal time in period 2. Both weight loss and fat-free mass loss were greater with the AM than the PM meal pattern: 3.90 ± 0.19 vs. 3.27 ± 0.26 kg/6 wk, P < 0.05, and 1.28 ± 0.14 vs. 0.25 ± 0.16 kg/6 wk, P < 0.001, respectively. Change in fat mass and loss of body energy were affected by order of meal pattern ingestion. The PM pattern resulted in greater loss of fat mass in period 1 (P < 0.01) but not in period 2. Likewise, resting mid-afternoon fat oxidation rate was higher with the PM pattern in period 1 (P < 0.05) but not in period 2, corresponding with the fat mass changes. To conclude, ingestion of larger AM meals resulted in slightly greater weight loss, but ingestion of larger PM meals resulted in better maintenance of fat-free mass. Thus, incorporation of larger PM meals in a weight loss regimen may be important in minimizing the loss of fat-free mass.
My Comments: This one I found very interesting. Basically, stacking your calories towards the beginning of the day causes you to lose weight faster - but you are also losing muscle mass. However, by stacking your calories towards the END of the day, you lose weight slower - but you preserve more muscle. Personally, I'd rather take my time, eat late, and keep that fat burning muscle around.
2: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1992 Mar;55(3):645-51.
The role of breakfast in the treatment of obesity: a randomized clinical trial.
Schlundt DG, Hill JO, Sbrocco T, Pope-Cordle J, Sharp T.
Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240.
Fifty-two moderately obese adult women were stratified according to their
baseline breakfast-eating habits and randomly assigned a weight-loss program.
The no-breakfast group ate two meals per day and the breakfast group ate three
meals per day. The energy content of the two weight-loss programs was identical.
After the 12-wk treatment, baseline breakfast eaters lost 8.9 kg in the
no-breakfast treatment and 6.2 kg in the breakfast treatment. Baseline breakfast
skippers lost 7.7 kg in the breakfast treatment and 6.0 kg in the no-breakfast
treatment. This treatment-by-strata-by-time interaction effect (P less than
0.06) suggests that those who had to make the most substantial changes in eating
habits to comply with the program achieved better results. Analyses of
behavioral data suggested that eating breakfast helped reduce dietary fat and
minimize impulsive snacking and therefore may be an important part of a
weight-reduction program.
Publication Types:
Clinical Trial
Randomized Controlled Trial
PMID: 1550038 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
My Comments: This comment here just about says it all: "Analyses of behavioral data suggested that eating breakfast helped reduce dietary fat and minimize impulsive snacking and therefore may be an important part of a weight-reduction program." So - it's not really eating breakfast that makes a difference, it's making GOOD food choices all day long that makes the difference.
http://www.mealsmatter.org/EatingForHealth/Topics/article.aspx?articleId=5
(quoting sections of the article)
When you skip breakfast, your metabolic rate slows down and your blood sugar drops. As a result, you become hungry and have less energy. This sets you up to impulsively snack in the morning - often on high-fat sweets - or to eat extra servings or bigger portions at lunch or dinner. When you eat breakfast, your body feels nourished and satisfied, making you less likely to overeat the rest of the day.
My Comments: Once again, this article is focusing on the 'fact' that eating breakfast prevents you from getting so hungry that you run to the vending machine at 10am and grab the first thing that looks good due to HUNGER. Or you eat your lunch and your coworkers lunch, and STILL grab something out of the vending machine. If, let's say - you aren't starving YOURSELF - you aren't going to run for the vending machine or eat a huge lunch - breakfast or not.
(quoting sections of the article)
Does it matter? Do we really need that meal in the morning?
Some current research suggests that yes, we do.
• A recent study of 16,452 American adults, reported in Harvard Men's Health Watch, a medical school newsletter, found that skipping breakfast wasn't a good way to manage weight. Those who ate a healthful breakfast tended to be leaner than breakfast skippers.
• A 2002 study of people in the National Weight Control Registry, a group of more than 3,000 people who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept the weight off for at least a year, showed that those who had maintained long-term weight loss were usually breakfast eaters, and the researchers concluded it may have been a factor in their success.
• In another study, reported on the popular health Web site WebMD, scientists found that women who skipped breakfast ate more during the rest of the day and had higher levels of LDL, or bad, cholesterol.
But it's also worth noting that the funding for the first study (and many others) was provided by the Kellogg Co., one of the world's leading producers of breakfast cereal, so perhaps it's not surprising the researchers stressed that eating ready-to-eat cereal is a good thing.
In the second study, the scientists found that eating breakfast was a characteristic common to many of the successful weight-loss maintainers but did not conclude that it caused their success.
As for the last study, it involved only 10 women who skipped breakfast for two weeks. Earlier research on the effects of omitting breakfast using overweight subjects had been inconclusive, according to WebMD.
Breakfast, says Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is a non-issue for healthy adults.
My Comments: Oh, this article had me snickering. Especially considering I HAD noticed that a lot of the surveys mentioned starting your day with a 'fiber-rich cereal like Z, Y, or X blahblahblah'. Yup, most of these breakfast studies are funded by the very people trying to SELL breakfast. How sneaky is that? How much credibility can these studies REALLY have - especially considering not ONE of them came out and baldly stated that either a) Breakfast (in and of itself) HELPS you lose weight. nor b) That breakfast - in and of itself - keeps your metabolism going. But then - I didn't include metabolism as one of my search words.... let me see what I can dig up if I do that.
(quoting from the article)
"We think it kick-starts your metabolism because you've eaten something," Barton said. "When you get to lunch you're not starving and you can make reasonable choices for lunch and dinner."
John Kirwan, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University's Schwartz Center for Nutrition and Metabolism, said the findings may be "more reflective of overall eating habits and quality of food consumed."
"Those who eat breakfast on a regular basis are more likely to have a structured eating plan throughout the day and consequently are less likely to snack between meals and consume empty calories," said Kirwan, who has studied the effect of breakfast consumption on exercise performance and was not involved in the study.
My Comments: This is actually one of those 'cereal' studies, which proved that teenage girls who ate cereal in the morning tended to be slimmer than those who did not. But once again - even the study author (Barton) said that they THINK it kick-starts the metabolism, but they were SURE that it helped the study participants make better food choices through out the day - which may or may not really have anything to do with eating breakfast.
Overall, I got one main point from all of these studies, which quite simply is:
Eating breakfast helps you make better meal choices during the rest of the day. Now, if you are already making GOOD meal choices, you aren't eating empty calories or randomly snacking, and you aren't hungry - what's the point of eating breakfast again? There's not ONE study that I could find that conclusively proves that breakfast 'kickstarts' your metabolism.
And then - there's the blood suger bit. I don't do hunger, and I don't do low blood sugar. I get REALLY ugly headaches when my blood sugar drops, and I just don't LIKE being hungry. It's a nasty, nasty feeling.
I'm wondering, if the fact that I tend to eat within 3 hours of going to bed, instead of stopping eating 4-5 hours before I go to sleep, makes a difference? I wonder, how much of the food I ate the night before is still getting the calories and nutrients sucked out of it in my digestive system once I wake up. The digestive system goes to sleep when you do - so maybe that's why I'm not hungry early in the morn - my body still has food to process.
Interesting, interesting, interesting. I LOVE looking at studies for stuff that people consider to be 'givens'. The articles that focus on the abstracts usually don't outline the full span - or the full results of the study.
So - will I be eating breakfast? I'm still not sure - I might - just something little, something under a 100 calories, like a boiled egg, or a piece of cheese or something, and see 1) If I get hungier quicker - which to me would be an indication that my metabolism IS burning faster, and thus my body needs more fuel and 2) if I lose weight any faster.
Hm. That's an interesting thought. If I am MORE hungry on the days I eat breakfast - I will most likely consume MORE calories in a day than I would if I didn't. Now, is the resultant increase in my metabolic rate going to balance out the additional calories? Cuz see, like I said earlier, I don't DO hunger. I've never 'stuck' on a lowcal/lowfat diet because of that very reason. If I'm hungry, I'm going to eat, period - and sometimes 3 celery sticks simply AREN'T going to satisfy me. The lowcal/lowcarb diet works for me, because - well, I'm not hungry. Which also means I can make good food choices all day long.
This was fun.... I think I'm going to dig up some more metabolism studies....
