Order lunch at breakfast to cut the calories!

THE secret to staying slim could be to plan ahead and order your lunch straight after breakfast.

Research shows we choose smaller, healthier meals if we chose them in advance.

Every extra hour between ordering and eating cuts almost 40 calories from our intake.

This adds up to a saving of nearly 240 calories if a 1pm lunch is planned at 7am.

This would be close to the equivalent of a four-finger KitKat containing 230 calories or approaching the 200 or so calories burnt off by a two-mile walk.

Academics in the US studied more than 700 office workers and 200 university students who bought their lunch from the onsite canteen.

A series of experiments looked at whether they chose different foods if they ordered in the morning instead of buying just before eating. The earliest orders were put in at 7am and every hour led to up to 38 fewer calories being eaten at lunch, the Journal of Marketing Research reports.

Those who planned their lunch also ordered healthier options, plumping for low-calorie meals and smaller drinks, said the team at the University of Pennsylvania.

However, when asked, the men and women thought they made the same choices, regardless of when they bought their lunch.

Researcher Eric VanEpps said that ordering food in advance may make us less likely to make ‘indulgent purchases’.

But when the food is in front of us, temptation can be too much and we seek instant gratification.

Fast food chains capitalise on this, cutting the wait from ordering to eating to the minimum.

Ordering early in the day also means we are less hungry and so under-estimate how much food we will want later.