Is Eating Late a Bad Thing?

Posted by Caley on March 11th, 2009 at 04:59am

Many people believe that eating closer to when you go to bed contributes to weight gain. The reasoning behind this idea is that your body does not use that food for fuel when you are sleeping and instead converts it to fat.
Of course, no medical studies have actually demonstrated that eating late at night directly contributes to weight gain. Consuming more calories than you burn in a day is a much more important contributor to weight gain. But is it ok to eat late at night? Here are some of the reasons you might want to avoid eating late:

1. Although the time of day when you eat meals may be irrelevant, several studies have shown that eating smaller meals evenly throughout the day helps people to feel less hungry overall. In other words, you want to eat dinner closer to lunch. Irregular or extended periods of time between meals slow the body’s metabolism and lead to over-eating. Many nutritionists recommend eating even meals throughout the day (don’t rely on large dinners late) and if you have to eat later, snack on healthy fruits and nuts to help prevent over-eating.
2. Although too many calories overall is the problem, if you do over-eat at night, your body is less likely to burn these extra calories off. People are less active and body processes such as digestion slow with the circadian rhythm.
3. Eating early helps people to stop unhealthy snacking after they have already consumed dinner, such as on chips when watching evening television. If you can, eat your evening meal before 7p.m. and close the kitchen. Getting into a habit such as this one will help you to avoid consuming more calories than you need in a day.
4. Eating close to bedtime may also aggregate heartburn, if you are prone.

Tags: eating late, healthy meals, when to eat

Under Diet Advice Tags: eating late, healthy meals, when to eat