The breakfast habit that could help you burn double the calories

We’ve always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

And it turns out that it could actually help you to work off the calories.

According to a new study, having a big meal for breakfast could help you burn more than double the calories against eating a small brekkie.

Researchers who analysed participants’ metabolism in an experiment found that eating more in the morning could help you burn two and a half times as many calories throughout the day.

MORE: Healthy breakfast recipes to start your day right

Analysts looked at participants who had eaten a low-calorie breakfast and a high-calorie dinner in one day and then swapped their meal sizes on another day.

They found that the former meal plan boosted the generation of heat in the body that burns calories, with the same results even when the participants’ total calories remained the same.

“Our results show a meal eaten for breakfast – regardless of the amount of calories it contains – creates twice as high diet-induced thermogenesis [the generation of heat that burns calories] as the same meal consumed for dinner,” said study author Dr Juliane Richter.

“This finding is significant for all people as it underlines the value of eating enough at breakfast,” continued the doctor.

“Eating more at breakfast instead of dinner could prevent obesity and high blood sugar.

“We recommend that patients with obesity as well as healthy people eat a large breakfast rather than a large dinner,” she added, “to reduce body weight and prevent metabolic diseases”.

MORE:Big breakfast ideas to keep you fuller for longer

The study also found that those who ate a lower-calorie breakfast were more hungry for sugary foods throughout the day.

The research echoed previous results that were published in 2017, which found that eating a big breakfast, a medium lunch and a small dinner resulted in lower BMI readings.

Nutritionists came to the conclusion after tracking 50,000 adult participants over the course of seven years, finding that eating more in the morning could help to prevent long-term weight gain.