Can a big breakfast help you lose weight?

Conclusion
This dietary study found that overweight or obese women with metabolic syndrome lost weight on a specified controlled diet. They also seemed to have greater improvements in their blood sugar control when their main energy intake was at breakfast, compared with the same diet where the main energy intake was at dinner.
This lends support to the old adage that you should "breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dine like a pauper", as well as the theory that the timing of food intake may be important in people's efforts to lose weight.
This is something that does not have a high profile in current diets and weight loss efforts, which tend to focus on the number of calories consumed overall, irrespective of the time of day people eat their main meal.
Overall, the research was generally good quality, but has some limitations to be aware of.
Small sample size
The study's main drawback is that it only recruited 93 women, so it can only tell us so much about people and their weight loss efforts in general. The women were also all middle-aged and free of other major medical conditions, including existing cardiovascular disease.
It therefore tells us nothing about the effect of meal timing for men, women of other ages or people with other medical conditions who may also want to lose weight. The effect may be similar, but it would need to be studied directly to be sure.
Length of study
The effects of the diet were assessed in the short term during the 1...

Source: NHS News Feed - August 7, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news