Had a lean time? (6)
I believe the answer is:
dieted
'had a lean time?' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to consumption as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'had a lean time?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'had' could be 'd' (in contractions e.g. 'I'd', 'you'd' etc) and 'd' is located in the answer.
'time?' could be 't' (abbreviation) and 't' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dieted that I've seen before include "Followed an eating regime" , "Went on strict food regime" , "Ate sparingly to lose weight" , "Followed a food regime" , "Lost weight" .)