The ingestion of calories at a time shortly before the body is going to be at it’s most restful state (i.e. burning least calories).
Even if the total daily input has been less than you’ve burned during the day… if you NOW put in more than you are going to burn for hours then will you put on weight?
For me it helps me sleep if I’m not hungry and I’ve had LOADS of time to wind down (watching late night TV) While watching TV I want to eat.
Luckily I am good to myself, I refrain from eating, and will have something small once, and then go to bed.
In general, I think a bedtime snack or late supper is a bad idea. At least, it’s sabotaged my diet before, not necessarily because my metabolism slows down at night (though I’m betting it does), but because it changes the rest of my nighttime behavior. Since I’m cooking two meals, involved in the evening bedtime ritual for my son whether I’m actually putting him to sleep or not and also trying to make time to relax, I don’t devote enough time to my body’s upkeep.
We’ve fallen off the boat again - prior to going to India, I was really good about doing all my cooking on the weekends so my husband and I could eat with our son. This freed us up significantly at night, since we had time to clean, I could workout and we could have lots more sex or just spend some quiet time together alone. Partially due to all this extra time and more strategically planned meals and portions, I not only lost a significant amount of weight (I’ve lost about 22 pounds so far), I also started going to sleep earlier because I didn’t feel wound up from cooking one meal for my son and a second for me and my husband. As a result, I felt a lot better in the morning when I woke up - much more energetic and more likely to treat my body (and the rest of my family) well the next morning. I was more productive at work, too. Unfortunately, we’ve fallen out of the habit of doing this.
Anyway, in answer to your question, in my experience, yes, eating late has a significant impact if only because it may affect the rest of your behavior. But, as with everything else, your mileage may vary.
And as I type this, I’ve decided we’ll get back into the habit of eating early. Today.
So, thanks - this is exactly the motivation I needed!
I can’t prove it, but I don’t think there’s anything specifically wrong with eating at night. I don’t think that the resting-state thing dramatically changes the way your body handles calories.
Here’s why it’s a problem, those late-night meals are usually additional meals that you wouldn’t normally be eating. They are a 4th meal and they are purely extra calories. Weight loss/gain is entirely a function of calories ingested versus calories burned. If you eat the same dinner at 7pm or 11pm it’s roughly the same thing, but if you eat a 7pm dinner and a 11pm snack you are going to pack on weight. But, if you eat a 7pm dinner and a 8pm snack you’ll gain too.
My husband’s relatives did that as well - it was considered odd to eat at 6:30 or 7 - they always ate at 9 p.m. or later. I think food timing is sometimes cultural - if I recall correctly from our December trip, no restaurants were open in India for dinner before 8 p.m. whereas in the US, most families with school-age kids try to eat around 6:30 - 7:30, sometimes earlier.
eating many smaller meals more often is better for your digestion and metabolism than eating three big ones. therefore, if you plan to eat six times during the day, around 300 cals each, then you can eat a bedtime snack, having planned for it, and boost your metabolism more than you would if you ate a big chunk of food at 7pm and didn’t eat again for the rest of the night.
Most everything I have seen agrees that this is a myth. Eating many small meals is only effective if that’s a strategy for eating fewer calories. Eating frequently has a negligible effect on metabolism and it’s effects are not consistent from person to person. For every person who eats several small meals and ends up feeling less hungry there’s one who develops a habit of grazing and being conditioned to always be hungry.
The only way to lose weight is to reduce calorie intake and raise calories burned. If eating several small meals leads to your eating fewer calories over all then it’s fine, but if eating one giant meal adds up to fewer calories and you are comfortable all day then that’s the better solution for you.
You can’t effectively raise your metabolism by doing anything other than exercise, and any diet that doesn’t involve reducing calories is not going to work long term.
I, for one, am a big fan of John Berardi’s Precision Nutrition program. The guy’s written numerous articles about nutrition and bodybuilding, worked for a bunch of professional sports teams, and is a big proponent of the idea that eating more meals, and structuring your meals correctly, will have an effect on your metabolism. Here’s his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berardi and here are a couple good, free articles of his: http://skwigg.com/id82.html, http://skwigg.com/id91.html
There’s nothing inherently wrong with eating small meals. Every article that recommends it does so because for many people it helps manage hunger. For some people that makes all the difference. None say that it increases metabolism. Calories in are calories in, period.
His stuff is fine, but no where does he really discuss weight loss. His strategies are for nutrition and are geared towards athletes optimizing their performance, which is all fine an dandy, but not really the topic at hand. His top three rules are particularly dangerous ones:
Taken in the right context they are fine, but any diet the insists you eat whether you are hungry or not is a risky proposition for many average people, especially if those meals are to include meats and vegetables. These are not snacks and over-eater would use them as a license to actually increase their calorie intake. If you are an athlete looking to add muscle mass that’s perfect, but if you’re a slob of a couch potato trying to ditch the spare tire, not so much.
Small Meals != Higher Metabolism
Small Meals != Weight Loss
I dropped about 35 lbs last year by stopping one bad habit–
Eating after midnight.
To clarify, I should say “eating within 4/6 hours before bedtime,” because I bartend so I go to bed between 4 and 6 a.m., generally.
For an ordinary person who goes to bed at eleven p.m., they would follow “my plan” by not eating after 7 p.m. at the latest.
I had a horrible habit of getting out of work at 3 or 4 in the morning, picking up something delicious like a burger/tacos/whatever, and then going to bed an hour or two later.
I did it for years. I put on about 5-10 lbs a year. Not a big deal, year by year…but a big deal within a few years. I have a decent metabolism, but those late-night feasts sabotaged it.
People ask me how I lost the weight. I tell them the truth. I eat my biggest meal within two hours of waking up; I scale down from there. If I have a craving, I eat it first thing tomorrow, vs. last thing at night. I eat anything and everything I want. I just don’t eat it after midnight.
I’m not saying my plan is awesome or healthy or will save your life or lower your cholesterol…I’m just saying that IME, a bedtime snack is not a good idea.
And even now when I do give in to late-night cravings, I don’t sleep very well, and often wake up with indigestion/heartburn or an upset stomach. I guess my tummy is a creature of habit.
My nutritionist insists I eat a nighttime snack (her creds: registered dietician at a hospital diabetes center). I eat 6 meals a day now, counting carbs (I’m insulin resistant). Breakfast has 2-3 carb servings (1 carb serving = 15g), lunch and dinner have 3-4 carbs and all my snacks are 1 - 1 1/2 carbs plus 1 protein serving (off the top of my head, I think that’s 7 or 9g). It keeps my blood sugar stable. The total amount of calories is less than what I was eating before, and I’ve been slowly and steadily losing weight. I think that if you have trouble sleeping when you’re hungry, and you’re keeping your total number of calories down, then there’s nothing wrong with eating a nighttime snack.
I usually get home from work fairly late - 7:30 pm. By the time I change clothes, make dinner etc, I don’t usually eat until 8:30 pm (or sometimes later). Dinner is my favorite meal, so it’s generally the largest calorie meal of the day for me (400-500 calories out of 1800). I’m in bed by 11.
I had no problem losing 70 lbs and keeping it off for 3 years. I very very rarely eat anything after dinner, but it’s just because I’m not usually hungry after dinner (I’m an afternoon snacker). If I were hungry after dinner, I would eat a small snack and not worry about the clock at all.
Here’s a link to a study that looks at the effect of night time eating.
Thanks for that! I guess I am coming at it from a build-muscle perspective, and not an average-joe-lose-weight perspective. This probably makes all the difference.
