The initiation of this cycle often stems from a place of innocence and good intentions. For example, an individual with weight loss goals doesn’t feel hungry in the morning and considers that eating without an appetite would be counterintuitive for their goals. Therefore, they choose to honour their acute hunger cues and delay eating until later in the day. However, this routine tends to backfire, leading to rampant hunger and overeating at night, which then recycles into suppressed appetite cues in the morning.
For many individuals this cycle can be vicious, and they’re determined to break it.
But how?
In our experience, employing some of the following strategies and tailoring these to be realistic and barrier-free for the individual can be helpful:
▪️If breakfast is initially skipped, slowly shift the clock forward and break the fast around 10-11am, opposed to 12-2pm.
▪️“Catch yourself before you fall”. Once hunger starts to creep in around midday, have a substantial, well-balanced meal pre-prepared (such as meal prepped lunch) that will assist with feeling satiated later in the day.
▪️ If energy dips mid-afternoon, have a pre-prepared snack or meal on hand to assist with satiation. For example, high protein yogurt, fruit, rice cakes/corn thins, protein oats, or something of the like.
▪️ If your schedule permits, try to eat dinner earlier (5:30pm-7pm) opposed to biological night, and aim to finish eating a minimum of two hours prior to bed. This will not only assist with quality of sleep, it will also increase your fasting window between dinner and breakfast. In turn, this should naturally result in greater appetite cues and the desire to eat a wholesome breakfast!
Let us know, have you fallen into this cycle before? If so, how did you break out?