Can anyone settle this for me?

mamabear1114

Does it actually matter what time you eat?
I love a snack before bed, and I save a special space in my calorie allotment for them, but I have heard these comments over and over...
“You should never eat carbs after noon because your body won’t be able to burn them off”
Or, “You should stop eating x hours before you go to bed or your body will store the calories as fat.”
Etc etc
I am just wondering if there is any validity/science to this as far as trying to lose weight?
Any comments/articles/studies/insight of any kind would be appreciated! Thanks for reading!

dinadyna21

No it's doesn't matter when you eat, your body can't tell time. All that matters is the deficit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425165/
First link wasn't very clear.

ladyhusker39

For weight, no it doesn't matter.

cwolfman13

I eat dinner...as in a full meal around 8:30 every night and have done so for as long as I can remember and I'm usually in bed by 9:30...I dropped 40 Lbs pretty easily and have maintained that going on 5 years.

You're burning calories 24/7...your metabolism doesn't stop just because you're in bed...unless of course, you are dead.

Rules like not eating carbs after such and such a time and whatnot are generally things people do to control calories...most people don't calorie count and use different mechanisms to control calories...so it's not that the eating after X time or not having carbs after Y time that is relevant...what is relevant is that those things can help people control calories if they're not counting.

I don't count calories and I follow some of those rules...namely I usually don't have any starches or grains with my evening meals...but really, that's just a way for me to control my calories and ditch a couple hundred calories I would otherwise be consuming...but other than that, there's no magic to it.

We are highly evolved beings...if things were this complicated, the human species would have died off eons ago.

YvetteK2015

No, time doesn't matter as long as you're in your calorie range.

Christine_72

This was the train of thought years ago. In a nutshell, the theory was that our bodies slow down when we sleep and is when it uses it's energy for repair and rest etc etc and less energy on digesting/metabolising food.

Please don't shoot the messenger lol This has been proven to be a myth since the good ol dieting days

LivingtheLeanDream

Nope timing does not matter.

sijomial

Doesn't matter - you may weigh more next morning as you have partially digested food in your system if you eat late but your weight trend over an extended period follows your calorie balance.

You are cycling between energy surplus/storage and energy deficit/using energy stores multiple times a day depending on when you last ate and activity. It's the balance of deficit/surplus that matters not the frequency or timing.
Funny enough carbs get mentioned a lot in these arbitrary rules but are in fact rarely stored as fat - they are preferentially either used immediately or stored as glycogen.

For non-calorie counters then personal rules around not eating XXXX after silly o'clock may help reduce their calorie intake or adhere better/easier to a diet (noun) that results in a calorie balance.

knightreader

200 calories at 9:00 am is still 200 calories at 9:00pm

quiksylver296

I eat dinner about 8:00 and go straight to bed. Losing weight just fine.

Need2Exerc1se

It matters only, but sometimes significantly, on a personal preference level.

If I tried to do the whole "breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper" thing or "don't eat after 7 p.m. thing" it would lessen my chances of success. Because that doesn't fit my lifestyle or preferences. I would not be as likely to stick with it and it would feel like a constant struggle.

Tried30UserNames

I sleep better when I have a little something close to bedtime. When that "don't eat after 7pm" thing was at the height of its popularity, I thought people were insane. I would go to work at 10pm and finish up about 2pm the next day. There were always a couple co-workers refusing to eat anything because it was after 7pm and of course lecturing the rest of us who did. If I'm doing hard physical labor at night, I'm going to stop for a snack or a meal sometime in there.

On the other hand, if you tend to follow your eating plan carefully during the day and then lose total control while sitting in front of the tv at night, consuming thousands of calories, it might be time to make yourself a rule not to eat at night.

callsitlikeiseeit

your body doesnt know or care what time you eat.

some people sleep better with food on their stomach. im one of them. others dont.

do whatever works for you and plan when to eat accordingly.