Chrononutrition is 2025’s wellness trend to watch—and it’s time to get on board

If there’s one thing GenZs and millennials have unanimously got right, it’s the positive shift towards wellness. The pandemic taught people to hold the reins on hustle culture and focus on their health. While healthier choices—avocado toasts, kale smoothies, pilates princesses, and gym bros—were adopted, some old, unhealthy habits tend to die a little harder than the rest. The main one? Sticking to improper meal timings. 

Skipping breakfast, consuming lunch at tea-time, or even worse, eating a heavy dinner close to midnight can be counterintuitive even if you’re eating healthy and working your glutes, legs, and arms off. Step in chrononutrition, 2025’s latest wellness trend that works in tandem with your body’s circadian rhythm to help boost overall well-being. 

Timing IS Everything

“The study of chrononutrition looks at how our body's circadian rhythms or internal clock, combined with the times we eat, affects our health,” explains Karishma Shah, nutritionist and integrative health psychologist. “Over the course of 24 hours, our circadian clock controls several physiological functions such as hormone production, metabolism, and sleep-wake cycles. Adapting our dietary patterns to these innate cycles can have a big impact on our health.”

Simply put, when you eat is as important as what you eat. According to Samreedhi Goel, nutritionist and fitness expert, it is one of the key factors to understand your diet. “Studying your day patterns, sleep routine, as well as timings of your meals and how it affects your metabolism and energy levels through the day, enables us to tailor your diet so that you can achieve your goals—whether it’s weight loss, fitness, or even gut health."

The benefits of chrononutrition

Following a consistent meal schedule according to your daily circadian rhythm has immense health benefits—it’s like giving your body what it needs, when it needs it. “If you master your timings, eat at fixed hours, and plan your meals, so that the meals giving you the most energy are eaten during the day when you are awake and active, it can impact your whole day, energy levels, alertness, metabolic rate,” says Goel. 

Other than enhanced metabolic health and improved weight management, synchronising your eating patterns with your circadian rhythm can also have cardiovascular benefits, aid better digestive function, and enhance sleep quality. “Studies have shown that time-restricted eating—which means you restrict food intake at designated periods each day—has improved cholesterol and regulated blood pressure, which lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases,” adds Shah.

“Cutting back on late-night meals, too, gives the digestive system time to recover, which may lessen gastrointestinal pain and enhance nutrient absorption. And lastly, by promoting your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, eating earlier in the evening and avoiding late-night meals, may enhance the quality of sleep.” So the next time you head out for the midnight binge, it’s time to rethink your decisions!

 

How to train your dragon (Read: Gut)

Thanks to the fast-paced lifestyle most of us tend to follow, training your gut according to your circadian rhythm may seem a little daunting. But, according to both experts, it is possible. “You can train your body to eat less portions, get the right nutrition, lose weight, have more energy, and be stronger, by practising discipline,” advises Goel. And, baby steps are the way to go!

Consistent meal timings

Stick to the same meal timings every single day. “Frequent meal plans optimise metabolic processes by bringing peripheral clocks in tissues like the liver and intestines into sync,” explains Shah. “A study showed that delaying meal times by five hours could change the rhythms of peripheral clocks without changing the central clock.”

Aligning meals and distributing calories

According to Goel, you should try to eat within an hour of waking up and always plan what you will eat according to what you will be doing in the next three hours. Also, avoid gaps of longer than three hours between every meal.

Secondly, Shah advises that eating during the day can help improve digestion and metabolism, which can be disrupted by eating late at night. According to studies, since the body's metabolic reactions are more effective in the morning, eating more calories earlier in the day may help with weight loss and blood sugar regulation.

Gradual adjustments

“You can reset your food clock by gradually changing the times of your meals if your present habits are erratic,” advises Shah. Over a period, you can successfully modify your body’s internal rhythms via small, regular adjustments to the timing of your meal.

Goel believes that once you follow this pattern for a minimum of 21 days, your body will slowly start to adapt to the ‘new’. More energy, better attention span and focus, and you won’t find yourself feeling hungry at odd hours. “Once you have trained your food clock by establishing timings and eating the right food at the correct  time you actually will find that you are unable to overeat.”

 

Also read: Trying to eat healthier in 2025? These food influencers have the best recipes to keep you on track!

Also read: Kickstart veganuary with these nutrient-packed plant-based ideas