Build a Better Breakfast: High-Fiber in the Morning Burns More Fat During Exercise

It’s a small study about how eating a certain type of breakfast can help you burn more fat, but it could nonetheless have a huge impact on losing unwanted pounds or maintaining a healthy weight. British researchers have determined that high-fiber, low-glycemic foods are best for kick-starting your weight-loss program. Keep reading to find out how eating high-fiber in the morning burns more fat during exercise.

One proviso: You only get the accelerated fat-burning benefit if you exercise. There is something about adding fiber and low-glycemic foods (items that digest slower and more evenly).

The study was performed with physically inactive women who started an exercise program while also following one of two breakfast regimens: either a low-glycemic morning meal including muesli, milk, yogurt and canned peaches, or cornflakes and milk, white bread and jam and, a sweetened carbonated drink.

Interestingly, both meals have equal amounts of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The difference is the low-glycemic breakfast offers about 3.5 grams of fiber, which in turn leads to a more constant fuel source not only for your workout but, perhaps even more importantly, for your muscles to rebuild.

The study, published in The Journal of Nutrition, tested women in an hour walk three hours after breakfast (that sounds a bit like lunchtime). When measured for biological and metabolic changes, the young women in the study (all 24 years old) oxidated significantly more fat and calories after eating the fiber-rich breakfast.

Here’s an interesting thing that means this breakfast strategy can carry over to other parts of the day: After eating identical lunches, the women reported feeling more full on days when they also ate the low-glycemic breakfast. So you burn more fat and overeat less often at the next meal.

And you thought you could never be a breakfast eater.