There has been a theory around for many years that having a large breakfast and smaller subsequent meals is a healthy way of eating. The old adage about eating like a king at breakfast, a knight at lunch and a knave at supper has been around for years.
It has been well known for a while that eating a big meal too close to going to bed is not healthy. Indeed it has been suggested that six o’clock is a good time for the average person to eat their last meal of the day in order to allow the body time to digest it properly. Digestion is a process which takes up a significant amount of energy. It makes sense, then, that this should be done before we go to sleep to allow the body time to rest fully, so that it is not actively digesting food during our sleep. Having a large amount of food in the stomach is also not conducive to sleeping as it makes the body feel bloated and uncomfortable, again not states which aid a restful night’s sleep.
Now it seems from new research that as well as being a healthier way of eating, having a large breakfast and smaller subsequent meals can also prevent obesity. Dr Jakubowicz, from Virginia Commonwealth University has told her patients to eat in this way for the last 15 years and decided that she wanted to compare this way of eating with the more traditional pattern of having a small breakfast and eating a larger lunch and dinner.
Dr Jakubowicz carried out a survey of 96 obese women. Half were placed on her ‘big breakfast’ diet while the other half was placed on a low-carb diet. She found that those who ate her ‘big breakfast’ of 1240 calories with more carbohydrate and protein than fat lost, on average, a fifth of their total body weight compared with less than five percent of the women placed on a low-carb diet. She also found that those on the ‘big breakfast’ diet felt less hungry. She also emphasized the health implications of allowing the body more time to digest food, thereby getting more nutrients from it.
The slow release energy of the ‘big breakfast’ diet, which consisted of fibre and fruit, meant that the body did not suffer insulin spikes and drops, which can lead to cravings for carbohydrates. The old adage it seems may then be right. In the morning pop on your ermine and crown and eat like a king!