Most people want to and should eat healthier while at work. For employers, unhealthy eating costs workers in productive hours commonly referred to as the 3pm crash. For employees, the feeling of being unproductive while digesting lots of food can take its toll on not only productivity but general well being.

Healthy eating doesn’t come from just eating fruits and vegetables. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. To help you not only form but make the most out of your healthy eating habits, here are five rules to follow to help you healthily eat at work.

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It may sound simple, but making time is the first step. Most workers get a lunch break, however short it may be. It is important to take some time to concentrate on eating, and use this time solely dedicated to eating your food. This also doesn’t mean “stare at a smartphone while you eat”. Making time to eat means making time to do exactly that, just eat. By concentrating on your food, you will eat it slower and digest it better.

This may sound simple and easy, but eating slowly isn’t. The term “al dente” in Italian means “with teeth”, and is a term given to Italian pasta when it has been cooked to the point of being chewy. While pasta might be quite unhealthy in excess, Italian people are not unhealthy despite having invented pizza, pasta and ice cream. The reason that they can often maintain a healthy weight is because eating slowly is heavily ingrained in their culture. Not only do they make time to eat in the middle of the day, but they make sure they chew their food and eat slowly when they do. A US study recently found that in a controlled test, people who ate slowly consumed 25% fewer calories.

This might sound counter-intuitive, considering hunger will often drive you to feel some form of pain. Snacking might feel great at the time, and allow you to do work and delay your lunch, but it adds up. Snacking is one of the quickest ways to upset your body’s digestive capabilities and ability to derive nutrients from actual healthy foods. A good analogy to this would be to take a road trip, and stop at “Every. Single. Petrol. Station.” on the way. Not only would your trip take a fair bit longer, but your journey would probably be really boring. Your body does the same thing when you snack. Instead of stopping at every station, take the express route and eat at an allocated meal time. This generally means eating three times a day.

Ok so this also might sound counterintuitive, especially when you’re already apparently starving from no snacks, but hear me out.

By eating to 80% full, you can essentially bypass that dreaded 3pm crash that you constantly dread. If you eat to 80% full, you will find your body thanking you for it come dinner time, because rather than you to eat your body will actually want to eat.

By following these rules throughout the day, you can set your day up to not only be healthy, but to be ready for anything. Here’s to healthy eating!