Studies have shown that the most effective way to feed your body is by eating breakfast, snacking, eating 2–3 hours before going to sleep, and manipulating your fat-cell storage.

Eating Breakfast

Even after a mere 4–5 hours of sleep, when you awake in the morning your body is coming out of a fasting period. The fuel tank is on low or empty. Even if you don't feel hungry in the morning, it's important to “break the fast” and replenish nutrients.

This prevents your brain from sending out hunger-alert signals later in the morning and stabilizes your energy needs for later in the day. Psychologically, having something to eat in the morning prevents you from feeling like you can overindulge later to make up for the skipped meal.

Snacking

If you were raised to refrain from snacking because it ruined your appetite for main meals, snacking is a tough habit to adopt. If you are a snacker already but feel you are overweight, you may want to examine the types of snacks you're eating and when you're eating them.

Let's be clear: A snack is a small amount of food eaten between meals whose purpose is to prevent blood-sugar levels from dropping too low. The best snacks are those made up of complex carbohydrates that are low in fat and high in fiber, such as fruit, whole grains, and some vegetables.

Also referred to as grazing, snacking is actually the preferred way to eat. Rather than consuming three large meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), grazing means spreading your total caloric intake throughout the day, eating smaller yet satisfying portions of food every three or so hours.

Getting into the habit of snacking means breaking the habit of only eating at regular meal times. Unfortunately, if you're part of the working world built around regularly scheduled eating times, that can be hard to do. Many managers don't take too kindly to seeing people snack at their desks, and in some jobs there is simply no time between meals to manage to eat at all. If you haven't eaten breakfast before arriving at work, your only opportunity to eat may not come until your scheduled lunch break.

In situations like these, there is usually still time to ingest a fluid — water, coffee, juice, or soda. If so, experiment with nutritional shakes and drinks. Many are designed for people who tend to skip meals and provide the nutrients of a well-balanced meal. There are also drinkable yogurts and fruit and vegetable juices that meet many of your nutritional needs. These include carrot juice, low-sodium canned vegetable juice, pomegranate juice, and other juices that do not contain high-fructose corn syrup.

Healthy Grazing

Fruits and vegetables top the list of healthy grazing foods, and items like sliced apples or oranges, bananas, seedless grapes, peaches, pears, and plums are easy to pack for on-the-go eating. There are also many pre-washed vegetables on the market now that make snacking simple. These include baby carrots, celery slices, a combination of lettuces, snow peas, and many others. Put some all-natural peanut or almond butter on the celery slices, or make a tea sandwich out of whole grain bread spread with nut butter and topped with a sliced banana.

Another great sandwich that can be cut into small pieces for easy munching is whole grain pita with hummus and greens such as broccoli slaw. Lots of cheeses (like cheddar, brie, or herbed goat cheese) go well with apples, pears, and grapes. Then there's always microwave popcorn (a “lite” variety is best) or a serving of healthy breakfast cereal chased by an organic, low-fat yogurt.

Eating Long Before Going to Sleep

After you eat, your body gets busy processing its food. This is called digestion. The body also has a long to-do list during the time that you're asleep. If the body needs both to digest and to tackle its to-do list at the same time (meaning you've eaten just before going to sleep), it's not going to be able to do its best work. It's like your boss giving you an extra assignment just as you're about to quit for the day. Make every effort to eat a small, healthy snack 2–3 hours before you go to sleep if you want your body to process the food optimally.

Eating for the Early Morning Runner

For many people, the best time to run is when they first get up in the morning, before the commitments of family and work. In light of this discussion about how important it is to break the night's fast and have enough fuel for the day, are runners who work out before breakfast ultimately causing their bodies to store fat?

In general, getting a run in before breakfast is fine so long as you aren't skipping breakfast all together. Optimally, you want to ingest some form of complex carbohydrate and fluid before you set off. A big glass of orange juice (with pulp) along with a glass of water helps. Following your run and 5–10 minutes of stretching, when you've cooled off, have a bagel, whole grain bread or cereal, some fruit, and lots of water for breakfast.