When Is It Too Late To Eat?

Photo credit: global healing center

MYTH: Never Eat Before Bed

Busy schedules can throw your meal times completely out of whack. Can a late-night dinner ruin a day's worth of healthy eating? It's time to find out.

We all have crazy schedules these days, so rules of how to dictate what time you eat can be pretty hard to follow. Is it really necessary to restrict your meals to certain times to lose weight? Keep reading to watch me bust this myth once and for all.

Calories don’t tell time. This myth stems from the long-rumored belief that you should stop eating two hours before you go to sleep. Has any reputable expert ever stated that this myth is fact? No, simply because it’s a bunch of B.S. You don’t gain more fat from the calories you consume if you eat them at 9 p.m. versus 7 p.m. Like I stated above, calories don’t tell time! You will consume the same amount of calories whether you eat them earlier or later, and your body will digest those calories the exact same way.

Late-night meals can lead to overeating. The one caveat of this myth is that when people eat later at night, they tend to consume more calories. Late-night eating is associated with obesity because if you’re waiting to eat until very late, you may wind up overeating. It may be that you’re a late-night snacker and your snack choices and quantities get out of control, or you eat a really late dinner and wind up splurging on a gluttonous dessert. Yet remember, it’s the food that is making you fat in this case, not the fact that you’re eating before bed. If you must eat later at night, plan your meals out ahead of time and don’t eat more than you intended.

Eating late at night may cause you to skip breakfast. Another thing that happens when you eat late at night is that you might still feel full the following morning. This could result in you skipping breakfast. As the saying goes, breakfast is the most important meal of the day and study after study has supported that fact. A healthy breakfast helps you reduce your hunger throughout the day and gives you energy. If you skip breakfast, you’ll end up ravenous at lunchtime and eat way more calories than intended. So even if you eat late at night and wake up still feeling relatively full, have a light breakfast like a piece of fruit with nuts or a low-fat Greek yogurt — it will help to control your hunger throughout the rest of the day!

The Bottom Line: You’ll consume the same amount of calories whenever you decide to eat — yet when some people eat late at night, they’re more likely to over eat and skip breakfast the next day. Keep that in mind and plan your meals out ahead of time, and avoid overeating by stopping eating when you are full!

Reposted from: Losing it with Jillian Michaels