(WHDH) — Indulging in a bigger breakfast and toning it back at dinnertime can be an effective way to burn more calories throughout the course of the day, according to a new study.
Researchers studied a group of healthy young men with a normal body mass index and found the number of calories they burned was much higher when they ate a large breakfast and a small dinner, findings published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism indicated.
The study showed that the men burned twice as many calories as those who ate a small breakfast and a large dinner.
Diet-induced thermogenesis — the amount of energy it takes to process a meal — was higher in the morning than at night, researchers concluded.
“Our results show that a meal eaten for breakfast, regardless of the amount of calories it contains, creates twice as high diet-induced thermogenesis as the same meal consumed for dinner,” said the study’s corresponding author, Juliane Richter. “This finding is significant for all people as it underlines the value of eating enough at breakfast.”
Eating a bigger breakfast and a smaller dinner was also found to reduce appetite throughout the day.
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