Skipping Breakfast for Weight Loss • Does It Help?

Your body uses energy for everything you do, including eating. Energy is needed to store food in your stomach, transport it to your small intestine, absorb it (into the bloodstream) and digest it. In technical terms, this is known as “diet-induced thermogenesis.” This, together with your basal metabolic rate and physical activity, determines your daily calorie intake. When you burn more calories than you consume, you lose weight.

So, does breakfast jumpstart your metabolism? Studies on this topic are inconclusive. It is still unclear whether this diet-induced thermogenesis after breakfast stimulates your metabolism, making you burn more calories.⁽¹⁾