Most important meal of the day...or is it?

This morning I just could not drag my booty out of bed. I was so tired. So I didn't get to have any kind of breakfast, which really isn't that rare of an occurrence for me, but I am going to be in my office until around 1:30 today with a little break before I have to go TA for my intro to mass communication class. I will be starving by then. Trying to plan a little bit I grabbed a cereal bar and ran out the door to catch the bus so that I wouldn't be late to work this morning.

One of the things we always hear is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that if we eat a big ol' breakfast we will be less hungry throughout the day. I personally have not found this to be true. I know that for health reasons we should eat breakfast, but a healthy one, not a hearty one. We do this to jumpstart our metabolism in a good way. However many people think that breakfast is kind of a free for all because you have all day to burn off those calories. Myth? Well let me tell you about what I found.

Once I got to work I started scanning the Web for some health news and on CNN I found an article about breakfast and after my morning fiasco I decided to go ahead and read that article that I am now going to share with you.

A new study has found that a big breakfast will not help you lose weight. The research in this study found that no  matter what someone had for breakfast they still seemed to eat the same amount and lunch and dinner. The study followed 280 obese and 100 normal-weight German's and they recorded everything they ate and drank for two weeks. Most of those in the study ate cereal or sausage and bread for breakfast.

"It's common belief when you have a big breakfast, you reduce energy intake during the day," said Dr. Volker Schusdziarra, a researcher from the Else-Kröner-Fresenius Center of Nutritional Medicine in Munich, Germany. "This is not true. Whatever you eat for breakfast doesn't influence lunch and dinner. The breakfast calories are added on top. You end up with more calories at the end of the day."

So the study found that no a big breakfast is not going to keep you from having the munchies later in the day in fact it will just help you pack on a higher caloric intake during the day. In fact Schusdziarra even disputes the wise tale that you need to have breakfast.

"If someone doesn't need breakfast, why should they eat breakfast? If I don't feel hungry, I don't miss anything," said Schusdziarra. "They've already saved some breakfast calories. If you want to have breakfast, eat it. But you can save calories at breakfast. Big breakfast doesn't save calories. This is what people should know."

The one thing that was found in the study was that people who skipped breakfast did tend to snack more in the morning. I just consider that a breakfast substitute. So what have we learned from this. If you are wanting to lose weight, have breakfast or don't. It doesn't really matter, but the important thing to do is to keep track of what you are eating throughout the day. I hope you all have a great morning!