Is breakfast the best time of the day to eat a big meal and lose belly fat?

The true meaning of diet is not to starve your body of nutrition but to balance its nutrient intake and dribute it in such a way throughout the day so as to perk up your metabolism and discourage fat pileup. A weight loss programme cannot be successful unless it is customised to your body type, work profile and meal timings.
Most fitness fanatics len more to the so-called experts or follow pre-charted diet plans instead of observing their own body, understand its requirements and notice how it reacts to the foods we eat at a certain point of the day. Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day and one should consume enough calories to support their Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)—average need of calories to perform the basic life functions throughout the day. Thus, this is the time to eat a heavy, nutritious diet with proteins, carbohydrates, fats and multivitamins that should comprise at least 1/4th of the day’s total calorie consumption.
Calorie intake is subjective and differs, based on your physical fitness, exercise routine, and weight loss or gain goal. But on an average, if one needs 1,600 calories—about 500-550 calories should be consumed during breakfast, about 400-450 during lunch, about 250 during tea time with snacks, 300-350 during dinner and 200-250 before dinner in the form of fruits and juices.
A hearty breakfast or a morning-loaded meal plan is essential for reducing abdominal fat pile-up and reducing appetite and hunger, which amounts to belly fat reduction in the long term. Research has shown that if breakfast is the significant meal of the day, it reduces the daily averages for appetite, desire for food, likelihood of intake, thirst, and the composite appetite score. After all, it takes longer for a stomach to empty after a larger meal with a higher calorie load. The foods need time to be broken down, keep you feeling full, build satiety and kill much of your munch-on desires till about half the day.

What research says about breakfast?
While late-night eating has long been linked with an increased risk for obesity, researchers weren’t sure exactly how. But now a study Frank Scheer, the director of the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School, has shown why eating heavy earlier in the day helps. “When meals are delayed four hours and everything else stays the same, you burn fewer calories, have an increased drive for food, and experience changes in fat tissue that would promote weight gain,” he was quoted as saying. “The new data suggest, together with the literature, eating earlier in the waking day results in changes in physiology that would promote weight loss and limit weight gain,” Scheer said.
Breakfast option
A glass of cow, soya, coconut or almond milk is a must in the morning for protein requirements. Accompanied with traditional Indian options like vegetable parathas, idli, dosa or simple roti-sabji, sandwiches, greens with a combination of fruits are ideal for the morning spread. Eggs and bread usually top the non-vegetarian options.
The ideal lunch platter
The next meal, lunch, is necessary to keep one active and alert, so eating foods that may make you drowsy should be avoided. Salads, curds, vegetables that offer high fibre, antioxidants and proteins should make up your lunch.

Against popular opinion that fried food should be avoided, vegetables or meat fried in fresh indigenous oil of sesame seeds, mustard or coconut can be consumed in moderation during the first half of the day to provide the body with enough calories to last throughout the day. One should avoid the recent, aggressively marketed extra refined oils that lack the nutrition available in our indigenous oils. Having said that, lening to your body, watching it react to these foods and most importantly, ‘moderation in consumption,’ is the key to being able to eat your favourite fried chicken.
The fluid dinner
The last meal of the day is only meant to provide hydration and make up for the loss of fluid throughout the day. So dinner should be light, mostly consing of protein rich soups or juices. Eating fruits can provide you with both solid food intake and hydration. If you are underweight, try taking dry fruits. It’s essential to consume micro as well as macro nutrients as you end your day.
One thing that stands true is that fast foods, though Western or Indian, hardly provide adequate nutrition required for the body from a certain meal. It may make you feel full and add to the adipose tissue but will not ass your body in any way. However, fast foods now also include a variety of salads, paneer or chicken dishes that improve your overall nutrition intake. Make exercise a part of your life and if possible, a morning routine. Once you achieve that, it won’t feel criminal to eat good, home-cooked fried chicken or paneer makhni once in a while during lunch.