If you think about skipping breakfast just for the sake of losing some pounds then you could be wrong, at least this is what a group of scientists, led by Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz, a clinical professor of medicine at the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, suggest.

They presented their findings Tuesday, June 17, at the Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

They say that eating a big breakfast containing lots of proteins and carbohydrates helps people cut sweets and starchy foods and also boost the metabolism. This is not the first time breakfast is said to play an important role in losing weight and keeping a healthy diet with more fruits and vegetables. Of course, people should not expect to lose weight in a very short time if they choose to follow a diet based on this kind of breakfast.

Ninety-four obese, inactive people were assigned to two different diets for this study. The diets were low in fat and total calories, but differed in how carbs and calories were allocated.

Forty-six of these women were assigned to a very low carb diet, which allowed them to eat 1,085 calories a day. The diet was based on 17 grams of carbohydrates, 51 grams of protein and 78 grams of fat a day. Breakfast was the smallest meal of the day at 290 calories, containing 7 grams of carbohydrates, such as bread, fruit, cereal and milk and just 12 grams of protein, such as meat and eggs.

The other forty-eight women in the study were assigned on a modified low-carb diet or “big-breakfast diet,” which allowed them to eat 1,240 calories a day. The new diet was based less on fats (46 grams) and more on Carbs (97 grams) and protein (93 grams). The women had a 610-calorie big breakfast, consisting of 58 grams of carbs, 47 grams of protein and 22 grams of fats. Lunch consisted in 395 calories (34.28 and 13 grams of carbs, protein and fat, respectively) and dinner in 235 calories (5,18 and 26 grams, respectively).

After four months, low-carb dieters lost an average of around 5 pounds more than the women assigned to a big-breakfast diet. Unfortunately, after eight months, the situation changed.

More exactly, the low-carb dieters putt an average of 18 of those pounds back on, while the big breakfasters continued to lose weight, on average 16.5 pounds each.

Overall, they lost a fifth of their total body weight, compared with less than 5 percent for the low-carb dieters.

There seems to be an explanation for these findings as well, the researchers said. The big-breakfast diet helps in losing weight in a healthy way allowing people to eat more fruit thus getting enough fiber and vitamins. Low-carb diets “exacerbates the craving for carbohydrates and slow metabolism – as a result, after a short period of weight loss, there is a quick return to obesity,” Dr. Jakubowicz said, as quoted by BBC News.

Also, the body appears to produce more hormones like adrenaline and cortisol in the morning, which are ready to convert protein to energy. More carbs and proteins in the morning give the body a greater sense of satiety in the morning, she added.