How Important is Breakfast Really?

One of the oldest sayings in nutrition is that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’, but have we ever put this to the test, or are we simply accepting it as a known truth? Is it merely a marketing claim or is there significant, strong evidence that points towards the claims being true?

We all have different breakfast habits - some people wake up absolutely staving and ready to eat a horse within minutes. Other people don’t need to eat for hours upon waking. Proponents of intermittent fasting will argue that this is not only a good way of approaching your nutrition, it’s in fact better than the traditional ‘early breakfast’ approach.

The problem with a lot of how we approach nutrition questions such as ‘is breakfast important?’ is that we look at them with a bias - such as weight loss.

When we ask the question, we’re doing so with too narrow a focus. When most people ask how important is breakfast, what they’re really asking ‘does eating breakfast help with weight loss?’ In this article we’re going to address the breakfast question from three different angles….

1. Does eating or avoiding breakfast help with weight loss?

2. Does eating or avoiding breakfast help with cognitive function?

3. Does eating or avoiding breakfast help with physical performance?

By looking at the same question through three different lenses, I hope be able to provide a better quality answer than ‘yes or no’.

Does eating or avoiding breakfast help with weight loss?

Regardless of the time or type of food we consume, weight loss is governed by energy balance - calories in versus calories out. Whether you eat breakfast or not, if you eat more energy than your body needs, you’ll put on weight. The reverse is also true.

What the weight loss and breakfast research shows is that there’s no clear and well-established link suggesting it’s either good or bad. You can find studies supporting both approaches - here’s one saying eating breakfast is good for weight loss and here’s one suggesting that eating breakfast is bad for weight loss. The best advice here is that do what suits you - if you’re hungry in the mornings, eat. If you’re not, don’t.

There is some thinking that says skipping breakfast certainly reduces overall calorie intake, but it may also reduce energy levels throughout the day, making you move less and therefore burn fewer calories, reducing weight loss. It’s a question of balance - if eating breakfast helps you feel more energised throughout the day, go for it. If not, maybe don’t.

I know that’s a pretty vague answer, but the key takeaway is that your weight loss isn’t purely determined by what you eat or don’t eat first thing in the morning. It’s down to energy balance and you can affect that at all different times of the day with your actions and food choices.

Does eating or avoiding breakfast help with cognitive function?

This is where things begin to become a bit clearer. We go from being able to make casual links between breakfast and an outcome to being able to test the effects of breakfast on cognitive capabilities. That being said, the brain is a pretty complex machine so results will vary!

What we’ve learned from looking at the data is that there are some elements of brain function that eating breakfast helps, almost without doubt. The big one is memory - eating breakfast has been shown to improve both short and long term memory in participants.

Other aspects of cognitive function that appear to be improved by eating breakfast include ‘executive functions’ - an umbrella term that covers working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control. This is interesting, because it links back to the weight loss point. If eating breakfast helps to improve self-control, it stands to reason that it will help those same people with making better food choices.

There’s differences in opinion about how different foods impact cognitive function in the mornings, with arguments about whether or not fat dominant foods, protein dominant foods and carbohydrate dominant foods are the best. In the absence of clear evidence, the AdMac Fitness suggestion is for you to experiments with all three and see what works for you.

Does eating or avoiding breakfast help with physical performance?

Here’s another area where the nuance makes for a difficult recommendation. Some people who have been intermittent fasters, or those who have become fat-adapted through long term ketogenic dieting for example, may struggle to train having eaten breakfast.

Other people may need some food in their system to help with their physical performance.

The reality is we’re all built differently and blanket advice doesn’t allow for nuance. What we do know is that when studied, a light breakfast (around 120 calories) appears to have a beneficial impact on performance. The research isn’t strong enough to suggest a light breakfast as advice as such, but the evidence points towards it helping.

For reference, 120 calories is roughly a large banana.

Further study suggests that skipping breakfast may reduce exercise capacity later on, suggesting that if you are a morning exerciser, you’ll need to eat something in the morning in order to maximise your ability to train. The evidence suggests that training whilst fasted will (for most people at least) reduce your exercise capacity, which has a knock-on effect on calorie burn and fitness improvements.

If we combine the advice across multiple different studies, perhaps a good bit of advice would be to eat a light (120 calorie) breakfast ahead of morning exercise in order to maximise training output. If you train later in the day, it’s not as important.

How Important is Breakfast Really? Final Thoughts…

Based on the evidence, breakfast is important if you’re an early trainer, or you’re going to do something that’s going to require a bit of brain power early in the morning! If either of those apply to you, eat something small, healthy and easy to digest.

When it comes to weight loss, it’s not that important - making sure you don’t overeat throughout the day is far more important than what or when you eat your first meal of the day.

Don’t obsess over the small things. Stick to what you know works for you and you won’t go far wrong!

If you’re looking for personal training in East London, get in touch!

At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!