--- title: Does Breakfast Help You Lose Weight? description: Breakfast can be a solid nutritional dividing line. Cross into the realm of whole grains and eggs, and you feel great about embracing what we've... canonical: https://time.com/3154467/breakfast-lose-weight/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-21T19:33:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:50.986Z article:section: Health og:title: Breakfast Might Not Help You Lose Weight og:description: Breakfast can be a solid nutritional dividing line. Cross into the realm of whole grains and eggs, and you feel great about embracing what we've... og:url: https://time.com/3154467/breakfast-lose-weight/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34858e92e1c4a06a/69869029810bbb2cfec91ab7/fruit-loops-breakfast-cereal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5616 og:image:height: 3159 og:image:alt: Bowl of colorful breakfast cereal with spoon og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Breakfast Might Not Help You Lose Weight twitter:description: Breakfast can be a solid nutritional dividing line. Cross into the realm of whole grains and eggs, and you feel great about embracing what we've... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt34858e92e1c4a06a/69869029810bbb2cfec91ab7/fruit-loops-breakfast-cereal.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Breakfast Might Not Help You Lose Weight > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=592d4e73-07f4-4dfd-97d6-129eec903372&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 21, 2014 7:33 PM UTC  Bowl of colorful breakfast cereal with spoon Bowl of colorful breakfast cereal with spoon Getty Images  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Aug 21, 2014 7:33 PM UTC Breakfast can be a solid nutritional dividing line. Cross into the realm of whole grains and eggs, and you feel great about embracing what we’ve come to know as “the most important meal of the day.” Abstain, and you’re in for some skipped-breakfast shame. But researchers are questioning the merits of the morning meal, according to two rigorous trials in which people were randomly assigned to eat breakfast or not, appearing in [the August issue](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/100/2.toc) of the _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_. The two studies explored the main claims made about the benefits of breakfast — that it helps with weight loss and boosts metabolism. James Betts, one of the study’s authors and a senior lecturer in nutrition and metabolism at the University of Bath in the U.K., decided to look into the research more closely after a colleague criticized his habit of skipping breakfast. He found very little. **“**As a scientist, I was quite shocked actually at how sparse the evidence base was,” he says. In one [study](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/100/2/539.abstract) from the University of Bath, researchers instructed 33 lean adults to either eat nothing in the morning or a 700-calorie breakfast of their choice. After six weeks of the intervention, researchers found that eating breakfast didn’t rev metabolism — instead, the participants’ resting metabolic rates remained the same. Skipping breakfast didn’t prompt the volunteers to gorge at lunchtime either, another common claim. So in these people, having a smaller appetite wasn’t a byproduct of breakfast. But breakfast eaters didn’t lose more weight. That’s perhaps not surprising, given that the study lasted only a few weeks, but the other larger, longer [study](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/100/2/507.abstract) in the same issue came to a similar conclusion. Researchers from several institutions assigned about 300 overweight and obese people to one of three groups for 16 weeks: those instructed to eat breakfast, those told to skip it, and a control group vaguely told to have a healthy diet. “What we found was absolutely no difference in the change of weight among the three groups, severely calling into question the idea — at least among ordinary adults — that it’s important to eat a good breakfast every day for the purposes of weight control,” says David Allison, one of the study authors and distinguished professor and director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Still, there were some distinct perks to taking the time to eat breakfast. Breakfast eaters moved more, burning away 442 calories more than the nonbreakfast group. “That’s equivalent to running on the treadmill for an hour or so for many people,” Betts says, “and that was just accumulated from being generally more active throughout the day.” Breakfast eaters also maintained steadier blood sugar levels and Betts is studying what breakfast foods are most likely to promote these healthy effects. So is it better to eat breakfast or skip it? More trials are needed — especially longer ones, and those studying the type of breakfast consumed — but a morning meal doesn’t appear to be a weight-loss silver bullet, even though it may help you move more. Betts says the new research can be helpful no matter where you fall on the breakfast spectrum. “If you’re like me and you skip breakfast, you can just use this information to be aware that you may not be as active as you otherwise would be,” he says. “So you should consciously think, don’t be lazy today.” And if you are a fan of the morning meal, then you can be satisfied that you’re more likely to be physically active during the day — something that most doctors agree is a good thing. ## Transcript [00:00] [ MUSIC ] There's something we all enjoy about staying [00:02] for dinner. You ever thought why? What was on [00:06] your dinner table when you were younger? Chances are [00:08] it had a lot to do with, what your doctor was telling you [00:10] is healthy. Building a strong healthy body is like [00:13] building a strong, beautiful building. If the foundation [00:14] is weak, the [00:18] whole building will be weak. It takes five fingers to [00:21] point the way to healthful eating habits. Well, here we [00:25] go. For years, the government published dietary [00:29] guidelines. Meant to keep Americans healthy. There's [00:32] a great deal to learn. Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell [00:35] you what you are. The body needs certain substances [00:38] to live and grow. And remember, your body [00:42] isn't just like an automobile. For years, the key [00:45] measures of those guidelines were the same, cut fat [00:48] from your diet. The committee's original report urged [00:51] Americans to reduce their risk of heart attack. By [00:54] reducing their intake of cholesterol down to the [00:56] equivalent of about one egg a day. And those [00:59] guidelines had an effect. From 1977 to 2012, per [01:04] capita consumption of eggs fell by 9 %, beef by 37 %, [01:08] whole milk by 72 %. Calories from saturated fat fell, [01:12] while calories from supposedly safe carbohydrates [01:14] increased. As one expert put it, it was a vast nutritional [01:18] experiment. With nearly a million American's a year [01:21] dropping dead from heart disease in the mid 80s, we [01:23] had to try something. Nearly four decades later results [01:26] are in. The experiment was a failure. [01:31] Americans are sicker than they've ever been before. [01:33] The prevalence of diabetes has gone up 157 % from [01:36] 1980 to 2011. Nearly one in ten Americans [01:41] now has the disease. Causing the public health system [01:44] $ 245 billion a year. Heart disease is still the number [01:48] one killer in the country. Americans are as obese as [01:51] ever. So, what went wrong? Good old granola. Great [01:54] for taste but loaded with fat. It doesn't take much of [01:58] imagine a leap to assume that fat would make us fat, [02:02] clog our arteries and raise the risk of heart disease. It [02:05] turns out that saturated fat is a lot more complicated [02:07] than we think. Carbohydrates and fats are nutrients. [02:10] Like man, you need nutrients to live and [02:14] grow. [ MUSIC ] Firstly, there are two kinds of [02:18] cholesterol. LDL which is linked to heart disease and [02:21] HDL which can be protective. Fats that course through [02:25] the blood are known as triglycerides and high levels of [02:28] those are linked to heart disease. Saturated fat raises [02:31] LDL cholesterol but also raises HDL. Moving LDL [02:34] buildup on arterial walls. So raising both, makes [02:38] saturated fat a cardio wash. One key piece of [02:41] information is that LDL seems to come in two forms. [02:45] Large and fluffy, small and dense. Those smaller [02:48] particles are linked to heart disease, while the larger [02:50] ones are mostly benign. Saturated fat increases the [02:54] number of large particles. The opposite happens with [02:57] carbs. I don't get it. Researchers [03:02] have long since discovered the kind of fats found in [03:04] olives and in fish like salmon. Are actually heart [03:07] protective. Now it turns out the fats found in meat and [03:10] dairy, aren't as bad as we feared before. So that [03:13] means by focusing so much on fats. We may actually [03:16] have been making ourselves sicker. So, she brings up [03:18] the subject of reduced- fat cheese. It's a fat- free [03:21] [ UNKNOWN ]. Fat- free, cholesterol free. Low- fat [03:23] granola. Reduced- fat Kettle chips. Reduced- fat [03:24] Chips Ahoy. Lowfat cottage cheese. Non- fat yogurt is [03:28] the perfect example. The thinking for consumers was [03:31] simple. Fat was dangerous. This product had no fat. [03:34] Therefore, it must be healthy. It's non- fat, which [03:37] means less calories. [ MUSIC ] But [03:41] amid the confusion about fat, we end up replacing it in [03:44] our diets with sugars and carbohydrates, which meant [03:47] our calorie intake was actually going up. When [03:51] carbs [03:54] and things like corn and white bread are ingested into [03:56] your body, their converted into sugars. Those sugars [03:59] convert to insulin cuz it's fat cells go into storage [04:03] overdrive, leading to weight gain. Since fewer calories [04:06] are then left to fill the body, you begin to feel hungry it [04:08] means our metabolism begins to slow down in effort to [04:11] save energy, we eat more and we gain more weight, [04:14] never quite feeling full. As this process repeats, our [04:17] cells become more resistant to insulin, which causes us [04:19] to gain more weight, which increases insulin resistance [04:21] in a vicious circle. Cut calories, and people just get [04:26] hungrier. Obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and low [04:29] HDL cholesterol can all follow. Study after study has [04:33] found it's very difficult to lose weight on a very low- fat [04:35] diet. Possibly because fat and meat can produce a [04:38] sense of satiety, that's hard to achieve with carbs, [04:40] making it easier to simply stop eating. But it isn't just [04:44] the increase in carbs that affects us. These processed, [04:47] low saturated fat alternatives, come loaded with [04:50] sugars, salt, preservatives, and even some unhealthy [04:54] fats. So what's the real alternative? As [04:59] one extra puts it, the cold hard truth about diet is that [05:02] the only way to eat well, is to eat well. You'll be [05:05] happier and you'll be healthier, if you focus on real [05:08] whole foods, whether they have fat or not. Got it. 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