Skipping breakfast may be healthy way to shed weight

If you skip breakfast, don't worry about overeating at lunch or the rest of the day, report Cornell nutritional scientists July 2 in the journal Physiology and Behavior. In fact, nixing breakfast a few times a week may be a reasonable strategy to shed pounds, they say. "There's a fundamental belief that if you don't eat breakfast, you will compensate for the lost calories at lunch or later in the day. We've found that there is no caloric compensation in a normal group of eaters," said study senior author David Levitsky, Cornell professor of nutritional sciences and of psychology. "If you skip breakfast, you may be hungrier, but you won't eat enough calories to make up for the lost breakfast." As a result, your total daily caloric intake will decrease. The study, "Effect of Skipping Breakfast on Subsequent Energy Intake," is co-authored by Carly R. Pacanowski, a doctoral candidate in the field of nutritional sciences. The researchers either fed or withheld breakfast from a group of volunteers, half who were regular breakfast eaters and half who regularly skipped breakfast.