"Hara hachi bu" - a Japanese habit that means stopping eating when you're about 80 percent full. It comes from Okinawa, a region famous for the longevity of its inhabitants, and it demands no diets, no bans, no counting calories. Just one thing: stop before you're stuffed.

Behind it lies clear physiology. Nutritionist Paloma Quintana explains that the brain needs time to receive the signals of fullness - through neurotransmitters in the gut, through the stretching of the stomach, through the rise in insulin and leptin. Those signals travel slowly, usually a few minutes. If you eat fast and down to the last bite, the body hasn't had time to tell you it's already enough.

And why do we keep eating when we're not hungry? "The typical 'there's always room for dessert' shows we often eat for pleasure, not because the body needs more energy," Quintana says. The test: if the salad that's left looks boring to chew, real hunger has probably passed. But dessert and processed food artificially wake the appetite again.

The practice is simple, but it takes attention. Eat slowly, pause between bites and ask yourself halfway: would I take another portion of the main course? If the answer is no, then you don't need the dessert either. It's no magic or rarity you have to buy - it's a habit that costs nothing, and one our grandmothers knew for decades under another name: get up from the table a little hungry.