When to eat

To reach and stay at your ideal weight, it’s essential to eat at the right time. This means two things:

  1. Eat when you’re hungry.
  2. Eat in sync with your circadian rhythm.

How to do this?

  • Understand why you eat. Recognise hunger and be aware of the other reasons why you eat. Resist deep-seated habits and peer pressure for eating when you aren’t hungry.
  • Recognise when it’s time to stop eating. Reduce portion sizes to stop over-stretching your stomach and retrain the way it sends the ‘enough’ message to your brain.
  • Eat regularly to support healthy eating habits and your own metabolism.
  • Eat at the right clock time for your body. Find out about the circadian rhythm and why it’s so essential to eat early – starting with breakfast and ending with a small and early evening meal.
  • Follow the Five for Life Fast described in Five for Life: Healthy ways for healthy weight for a practical and effective way to do time-restricted eating.