It’s morning and it’s breakfast time — in the midst of your latest attempt to shed a few pounds. All across North America, as the sun comes up across various time zones, there are a lot of people sharing the same goal — weight loss. There are countless individuals who are facing another day of trying to eat less and exercising more.
Well, researchers have discovered that eating eggs for breakfast may be an ideal start to the day — much more so than the equivalent weight of a bagel. Sure, everyone believes that having a bagel for breakfast is a much healthier choice than having a couple of eggs. But here’s what the researchers were interested in: could eggs reduce cravings, reduce short-term energy intake, and make people feel fuller for longer — thus allowing them to eat less?
With obesity reaching epidemic proportions in our society, the study’s authors were very interested in finding out if eggs could be useful in helping people achieve their weight loss goals. They took 30 people between 25 and 60 years of age, who woke up and had one of two breakfasts that had identical calorie counts.
The breakfast options were as follows:
1) Two scrambled eggs; two slices of toast with low-calorie jelly
2) One three-and-a-half inch bagel with cream cheese; one three-ounce serving of nonfat yogurt
The participants ate lunch about four hours after breakfast. Researchers measured how full the participants felt and if they were still hungry, then they measured how many calories the participants ate during lunch. The researchers found that if the participants were hungrier, then they’d likely eat more. They also found great results for the egg breakfast.
People who ate two scrambled eggs for breakfast had greater feelings of satiety (they felt less full), and consumed significantly less calories — both at lunchtime and over the next 24 hours. Compared to the other participants, who started their day with bagels, the participants who ate eggs consumed an average of 163 fewer calories at lunch — 263 fewer calories when you factor in dinner — and a total of 418 fewer calories over a 24-hour period.
Perhaps Atkins wasn’t so far off after all. The researchers suggest that more studies should look into this great possibility that seems to work — eating eggs for breakfast on a regular basis, eating fewer calories, and thus losing weight.
The best part is that eggs are both affordable and nutritious. Egg yolks have high amounts of cholesterol, so it’s advisable that if you eat eggs for breakfast five days a week, you should try to cut the yolk out of two of those breakfasts and dine only on the egg whites instead. In the past, eggs have had a 50% higher satiety rate than other breakfast foods from the bread and cereal group.
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Tags: Cholesterol, natural weight loss, obesity
