I have been hearing a lot about breakfast not living up the hype… resulting in breakfast bashing! As a lover of breakfast food, really any time of the day, I felt that I needed to rush to defend my beloved breakfast. The first study out of the 
University of Alabama showed that weight loss is not influenced by whether or not you eat breakfast. Ok, that is fine, but what about maintaining your weight? Not sure that they looked at this, but weight maintenance can be as important as weight loss for many people. This study, of course, had limitations that were pretty key like body weight was the only outcome measure, people in this study were not given recommendations for what is a healthy breakfast and were left up to their own discretion about what to eat. There are definitely winners and losers when it comes to breakfast and breakfast that contains a whole grain, source of protein and fruit is best! This may have made a difference if study participants were given these guidelines.
Another study called the Bath Breakfast Project out of the University of Bath in the UK looked at the difference between those that fasted before 12:00pm and those that ate 700 calories before 11:00am (and 350 of those calories within two hours of waking). They found that people that ate breakfast MOVED MORE that those that fasted! As a matter of fact, the breakfast group expended 442 more calories than those that fasted. When you eat, you have more energy…so this is not surprising to me . 🙂 The ‘kick-starting the metabolism’ theory may have been de-bunked in this study, as it did not appear that breakfast affected resting metabolism, but the breakfast group had better blood sugar control late in the day compared to those that fasted. In my book, that is good enough evidence to continue to say START your day SMART with a healthy breakfast!!!! Here are 20 great breakfast ideas under 300 calories from Fitness Magazine – Healthy Breakfast Ideas.