TV medic Dr Michael Mosley has advised Brits to eat dinner before 8pm in order to effectively lose weight because the meal "hangs around in your system".
The 65-year-old broadcaster, who has published books, presented documentaries and authored papers on sustainable dieting, endorses the old adage of eating breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.
The doctor said: "Try and stop eating by 8pm and then not eat anything with calories after that."
This is because, he told Coventry Live, what you eat before you sleep it "hangs around in your system for much longer."
Dr Mosley, who often appears on The One Show and other TV programmes to give advice on long-term diet success, suggests Brits should have large breakfasts and taper their meals off during the day.
The father of four last year published his new Fast 800 Keto diet plan, which recommends increasing your protein intake to at least 50g, while keeping carbohydrate consumption below 50g.
This is designed to put you into ketosis, which means your body burning fat instead of glucose for fuel - maximising your weight loss potential. The plan goes hand-in-hand with a key principle of Dr Mosley's diets - timing.
By having an earlier evening meal and a later breakfast, it increases the time your body is burning fat. This has similarities to Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) plans, usually 16:8 or 14:10. These plans see followers only eat within an eight or 10 hour window, to maximise their fasting time.
Speaking to Daily Mail last year, Dr Mosley said: "When you get up in the morning, you may be in a rush to tuck into your breakfast and get out of the door. Or you may be happy to hold off eating for a while (a lot of people find they don't get hungry until later in the day).
"One reason why you might want to delay breakfast if you're not ravenous is that, by doing so, you will be extending your overnight fast (i.e. how long it has been since your last meal)."
