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Have you ever wondered if breakfast really boosts your metabolism—as you so often hear?
ANSWER: False
As a health educator I can give you a lot of good reasons to eat breakfast—the notion that it boosts your metabolism, however, isn't one of them!
Digesting food does “cost” an average of 10% of a meal's calories to digest and assimilate it (see TEF, below). However, is that really a “boost” in metabolism? No, it is not. When you read these claims that "breakfast boosts your metabolism" it's implied that eating breakfast has an affect on your underlying metabolic rate. That is simply not the case. The only metabolic affect of eating breakfast is the commensurate TEF, just as for any meal.
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