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Carbs at night/before inactivity?

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Replies

  • Lovee_Dove7
    Lovee_Dove7 Posts: 742 Member
    You can use carbs to your advantage, as needed. A moderate sized portion of slow carbs for dinner can help you sleep. This is because there is is a dynamic with blood sugar and cortisol, if your blood sugar goes down, cortisol is released to increase it. If your cortisol goes up, you'll likely wake up. If this dynamic is an issue for your body, eat some slow carbs with dinner.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
    Love my late night carbs.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Hmm -- for people who use the carbs at night to help with sleep, what do you eat? If I eat dinner late anyway, do you think just including it with dinner would help? I know this isn't really debate, but I'm always lower on carbs than I intend and have issues waking up during the night, so maybe this is something to try.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    I just grab my dessert - so, a cookie or ice cream or whatever. But I mostly do it because I eat dinner so early (5-6pm) and go to bed so late (11pm or later) that I need something to stop my stomach from tying itself into a knot.
  • nragar
    nragar Posts: 10 Member
    dubird wrote: »
    As far as I can tell, it's neither good nor bad for a majority of people. I can have garlic toast and go to bed with no issues. However, some people have medical issues that make it a bad idea, like chronic acid reflux. And in that case, it's not carbs but really anything within a certain time period before sleeping.

    Straight to bed after garlic with no issues? So you sleep alone too then - which is another top tip for a good night's sleep!
  • Acceptable
    Acceptable Posts: 2 Member
    There is no sound data that explicitly comes to the conclusion that eating before bed is related to fat mass gain. What is related to fat mass gain is eating poor food choices and going over your macronutrients, which often go hand in had at night. From my bodybuilding perspective, it's more important to hit those macros than anything else, even if it means eating right before bed.
  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
    nragar wrote: »
    dubird wrote: »
    As far as I can tell, it's neither good nor bad for a majority of people. I can have garlic toast and go to bed with no issues. However, some people have medical issues that make it a bad idea, like chronic acid reflux. And in that case, it's not carbs but really anything within a certain time period before sleeping.

    Straight to bed after garlic with no issues? So you sleep alone too then - which is another top tip for a good night's sleep!

    I don't have issues with garlic. There may be people that do, but they don't do anything adverse to me. Maybe if I ate a bowl of garlic cloves it would be a different story, but there's not a huge amount on garlic toast, just a sprinkle.
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Hmm -- for people who use the carbs at night to help with sleep, what do you eat? If I eat dinner late anyway, do you think just including it with dinner would help? I know this isn't really debate, but I'm always lower on carbs than I intend and have issues waking up during the night, so maybe this is something to try.

    Most of the time, for me, it's popcorn. My dad got me an air-popper for Christmas, and it's being well used! XD
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    I have no idea if there are reasons why it might matter for some physically, but I've never noticed any difference in myself based on when I eat carbs or anything else. I've always eaten a lot at night right up until bedtime.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Hmm -- for people who use the carbs at night to help with sleep, what do you eat? If I eat dinner late anyway, do you think just including it with dinner would help? I know this isn't really debate, but I'm always lower on carbs than I intend and have issues waking up during the night, so maybe this is something to try.

    Oats - either oatmeal or raw oats mixed with yogurt for a few hours, topped with berries.

    I like to have a few hundred calories not long before bedtime, so I wouldn't include this with dinner, and this would also make dinner too big for me, but YMMV.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    I don't eat after dinner -- no rule but I eat dinner late and never want to. I think I should just do better about including more carbs with dinner, probably.
  • UpEarly
    UpEarly Posts: 2,555 Member
    I really don't think it matters when you eat them.

    I eat carbs whenever I want them and really don't restrict them at all. I've been at my goal weight for four years now. I ate abundant carbs the whole time I was losing weight, too.

    And a bonus... my sleep doctor actually recommended that I eat a carby snack about 30 minutes before I go to bed. It really helps me fall and stay asleep.


  • senecarr
    senecarr Posts: 5,377 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Hmm -- for people who use the carbs at night to help with sleep, what do you eat? If I eat dinner late anyway, do you think just including it with dinner would help? I know this isn't really debate, but I'm always lower on carbs than I intend and have issues waking up during the night, so maybe this is something to try.

    Oats - either oatmeal or raw oats mixed with yogurt for a few hours, topped with berries.

    I like to have a few hundred calories not long before bedtime, so I wouldn't include this with dinner, and this would also make dinner too big for me, but YMMV.

    I've seen oats used as a suggestion before too because in addition to the carbs, their protein content is high in tryptophan, the amino acid precursor to serotonin.
    EvgeniZyntx mentioned in another thread some research that carbs increase the availability of tryptophan which goes well with the idea.
  • Brettajohnson1
    Brettajohnson1 Posts: 1 Member
    It's more so about you're total calories for the day rather than meal timing, you're body doesn't shut off from digesting food late at night or when you sleep, if you eat in a surplus you gain weight, if you eat in a deficit you lose weight..simples.
  • magnusthenerd
    magnusthenerd Posts: 1,207 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Brettajohnson1 wrote: »
    It's more so about you're total calories for the day rather than meal timing, you're body doesn't shut off from digesting food late at night or when you sleep, if you eat in a surplus you gain weight, if you eat in a deficit you lose weight..simples.

    While I agree with your statements, I’m not sure why you resurrected a 3 year old thread to post this, when it was already covered on the first page?

    Perhaps she's a Phan of these discussions.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    edited February 2019
    The tragedy! I lost 150 seconds for this!
  • Fatty_Nuff
    Fatty_Nuff Posts: 273 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Brettajohnson1 wrote: »
    It's more so about you're total calories for the day rather than meal timing, you're body doesn't shut off from digesting food late at night or when you sleep, if you eat in a surplus you gain weight, if you eat in a deficit you lose weight..simples.

    While I agree with your statements, I’m not sure why you resurrected a 3 year old thread to post this, when it was already covered on the first page?
    I've noticed necro threads are always resurrected by people making their first comment. Why is that?
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    Fatty_Nuff wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Brettajohnson1 wrote: »
    It's more so about you're total calories for the day rather than meal timing, you're body doesn't shut off from digesting food late at night or when you sleep, if you eat in a surplus you gain weight, if you eat in a deficit you lose weight..simples.

    While I agree with your statements, I’m not sure why you resurrected a 3 year old thread to post this, when it was already covered on the first page?
    I've noticed necro threads are always resurrected by people making their first comment. Why is that?

    Google>MFP link>sigining up>reply to dead thread that was the first google result

    :|
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited February 2019
    cgchow wrote: »
    It's a classic question that's always being debated, it seems! What are your thoughts: substantial amount of carbs at night -- good or bad? (Obviously there'll be a difference depending on how much is 'substantial' and if they're complex or simple... But let's hear it!)

    Irrelevant unless it somehow affects your sleep or energy/hunger the rest of the day. I tend to prefer having more carbs at dinner, and find my fasted morning runs feel more energetic when I do. Complex (starch) vs. simple (sugar, including fruit) doesn't really matter. Sometimes I have more starch, sometimes less starch, more fruit. Sometimes I have starch at dinner and a little ice cream right after. I haven't found that any of that makes a difference for me.

    [Edit: heh, got snookered into responding to a zombie thread!]
  • lleeann2001
    lleeann2001 Posts: 410 Member
    yarwell wrote: »
    Not for me, adding a load of stuff I wasn't going to use would ramp up my glucose stores and increase my fasting blood sugar.

    yeah!!! what you said!!
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    I tend to eat my highest carb meal at dinner. Has never been an issue, and biologically there is no reason why it should be. Some find carbs before bed help them sleep better (although I haven't noticed a difference).
  • lleeann2001
    lleeann2001 Posts: 410 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    lleeann2001 wrote: »
    cgchow wrote: »
    It's a classic question that's always being debated, it seems! What are your thoughts: substantial amount of carbs at night -- good or bad? (Obviously there'll be a difference depending on how much is 'substantial' and if they're complex or simple... But let's hear it!)

    BAD! Ok look it. Before you go to sleep, you want your glycogen stores to be more depleted than not. Carbs fills up your stores and raise your insulin and you cannot burn fat. When your insulin is at baseline you burn fat for fuel

    If you're in a deficit, you're going to be burning fat even if you do have glycogen. When you're losing weight, sleep is actually a time when a lot of fat is burnt. This happens for people doing low carbohydrate diets as well as for people doing high carbohydrate diets.

    thank you....😀
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
    edited March 2019
    My n=1 is my fasting BG in the AM is lower if I have a bit to eat before I go to bed. So I usually have a 100 calorie measured cup of ice cream. If I don't have it, I tend to wake with a fasting BG of greater than 100 mg/dL.

    That little 100 calorie cup of sweet and fat doesn't negatively impact my sleep and seems to allow my body to not flood my systems with glycogen manufactured (IIRC) by my liver overnight.

    I believe the phenomenon is called the 'Dawn Effect'

    I don't know why I do it as the guidance is to stop having carbs at night to keep your blood glucose low. I find that some carbs and fat at night help me (but may not help you) keep things more normal.
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