Eating Before Bed

alits

I have been having a casein shake every night before bed for the last two weeks and lost more weight and havent changed anything else about my diet. The casein is supposed to keep your metabolism going all night even when your sleeping so your not starving when you wake up in the middle of the night or the morning. I guess it depends what your eating but once and a while cheating a little won't hurt. Hope you enjoyed your ice cream

ATT949

I have a space to eat a little more today which is really good. I was thinking about having some Breyer's coffee ice cream (my favorite).

The problem is I read somewhere that you shouldn't eat before you go to sleep because your metabolism shuts down while you sleep because your body isn't really doing anything. Therefore eating before bed is like twice as bad for you because your body is in its sleep state.

Does anyone know anything about this. I really want some ice cream, but I'm going to sleep in the next 30 minutes.

I've been counting calories for quite a while (900+ days) and I have routinely eaten a snack within an hour or so of bedtime.

As another poster has written about the Mayo clinic's opinion that this practice is innocuous. In the reading that I've done over the past 2 1/2 years, I haven't read anything different from a credible source.

ninerbuff

Our body runs on a circadian rythym which is about timing. The body is not designed to eat right before sleep. Therefor it does matter.

Source? Circadian rhythm doesn't revolve around calorie intake. I'd like to see the study on this if you have it.

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ninerbuff

Late Night Eating Linked to Weight Gain

By TARA PARKER-POPE


A new study in mice suggests that it’s not just how much you eat, but when you eat it, that influences weight gain.

Researchers at Northwestern University wanted to test whether the timing of meals could influence body weight. Many diet books advise would-be weight losers to stop eating after 6 or 7 p.m. However, it’s never been clear if the strategy works as a behavioral change — we tend to overeat in the evenings in front of the television and the computer. Or is there some physiological reason late-night eating adds extra pounds?

To test whether time of feeding alone can affect body weight, the researchers studied two groups of mice who were fed identical diets of food that contained 60 percent fat. Mice are nocturnal, and they typically consume the vast majority of their calories at night and sleep during the day. For the study, half the mice were fed the diet during the daylight hours when they would normally be sleeping — simulating late-night eating in humans. The other half were given the same food on their regular eating schedule.

At the end of the six week study period, mice in both groups had consumed about the same amount of calories and performed the same amount of exercise. However, the mice who ate when they normally would have been sleeping hours posted an average 48 percent increase in body weight. The mice who ate on a regular schedule had an average increase of 20 percent of body weight. The findings will be published in the October issue of the journal Obesity.

Fred Turek, director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology at Northwestern and the study’s senior author, said that human studies are needed to determine if timing of food intake influences body weight, but the study suggests that late-night eating may be worse, in terms of weight gain, than eating during normal waking hours. The findings would be particularly important for shift workers, who are known to be at higher risk for obesity, diabetes and other health problems. But he notes that it’s not just shift workers who are eating late. Most people eat a large percentage of their calories in the evening and continue eating late into the night.

Dr. Turek notes that humans evolved from a situation where they ate and foraged between sunrise and sunset. “After sunset, there were no refrigerators, no food just hanging around,” he said. “You didn’t eat. But today, people eat most of their calories after sunset.”



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Lol, anyone eating while they're supposed to be sleeping would gain weight. Again this DOESN'T address TOTAL calorie intake before bed. You can't GAIN weight if you eat what you burn. Energy isn't created out of nowhere.

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petechiae

I think that the problem with eating late at night is that we have a tendency to eat crackers, potato chips and ice cream around that time of the day. This is usually when we are on the couch, watching TV. I know it's the case for me.

Now if you are not careful about your caloric intake, it is very easy to eat more than one serving of ice cream or potato chips. However, if you watch your caloric intake, and if it fits in your macros, why not? I snack very often before going to bed, I never had any problem with that. I stopped doing it for a while and I did not observe an increase of weight loss. The only downside I can think about is that apparently you are prone to nightmares if you eat sweets before sleepy time, but I am not sure about the veracity of this information.

Just eat what you want in moderation. When you do it does not matter in my opinion. You can, if you want, test it out. Try not eating before bed for a few weeks, and see if it helps you lose weight more quickly.

holliebevineau

When I eat right before bed I wake up starving!!

_Zardoz_

Our body runs on a circadian rythym which is about timing. The body is not designed to eat right before sleep. Therefor it does matter.

that's hilarious