As the saying goes – “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

Shifting more of your daily calories from lunch and/or dinner to breakfast may represent a powerful strategy for slowing the highly predictable middle-age spread.

Cambridge scientists followed over 6,700 adults, age 40 to 75, over a period of about 7 years and found that although everyone gained some weight over time, people who consumed a larger share of their calories at breakfast gained less weight. Those who ate 22% to 50 % of their calories at breakfast gained about 35% less weight over the study period versus those who ate no more than 11 % of their total calories at breakfast (American Journal of Epidemiology, January 2008).

Several possibilities exist as to why this eating pattern could effectively curb weight gain:

1.) Of all meals, breakfast typically provides foods of higher nutritional quality, which have a favorable impact on metabolism.

2.) Metabolic rates tend to be a bit higher early in the day.

3.) Calories consumed in the morning have a greater chance of being burned through physical activity.

4.) The early morning feeding tends to have a positive influence on insulin sensitivity and appetite control over the course of the day.