Breakfast: omelet with cheese and avocado

Because they make you hungry again after an hour and a half to two hours.

A fast carbohydrate in the morning raises blood sugar, followed by a drop, and the day starts on a roller coaster: a snack at eleven, coffee with something at one, and by evening a person is convinced they have no self-control.

Protein and fat in the morning simply cancel this pattern. Not through willpower, but through physiology.

When your eating window begins. With an 8-10-hour window and a schedule of 10:00, 13:00, 18:00, it is ten in the morning.

You do not have to eat immediately after waking up. If you are not hungry, the first meal can easily be postponed—the 14-16-hour overnight break will happen on its own.

What you should not do is replace the first meal with coffee and “hold out” until lunch. That is the very small day that ends in overeating in the evening.

Three eggs and 30 g of cheese provide approximately a quarter of the daily protein requirement for a 70 kg woman whose target is 85-110 g per day.

This leads to an important conclusion: the first meal does not cover the requirement; it starts meeting it. You need a serving of protein at every meal, otherwise there will not be enough by evening.

If you are allergic to eggs or milk protein, the omelet-and-cheese option is not suitable—the fish and meat options remain.

If you are lactose intolerant, hard aged cheeses are usually better tolerated than fresh ones. If you have chronic kidney disease, a doctor should determine the amount of protein per meal.

If you have diabetes and use insulin, changing your usual breakfast requires monitoring glucose and coordinating doses with a doctor.

As much as you will eat. The “no more than one egg a day” restriction is outdated advice that has long been abandoned.

Two or three eggs for the first meal is a standard option. If you train and weigh more, four will not be a problem.

One separate caveat: if you have familial hypercholesterolemia or established cardiovascular disease, discuss the number of eggs with your doctor rather than taking it from an article.

Do not eat. The first meal does not have to be at seven in the morning.

With an 8-10-hour window, the start can be shifted easily: if you are not hungry, the 14-16-hour overnight break will happen on its own, without any effort. There is no point forcing yourself to eat breakfast “because that is the right thing to do.”

But there is an important difference between “I do not feel like eating” and “I do not have time.” Skipping because you are in a hurry almost always comes back in the evening as a double portion.

Cottage cheese is fine; the question is what you add to the second half of the dish.

A banana, honey, or dried fruit in cottage cheese is half the daily carbohydrate allowance in one meal. Plus blood-sugar swings that make you hungry again two hours later.

A practical option: cottage cheese with a spoonful of chia or ground flax, salt, and greens—or with a small amount of berries. This preserves the protein and fiber without using up the allowance.