Terrible to eat after 7pm?

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sey214
sey214 Posts: 15
in Health and Weight Loss
I've heard it's best to not eat after around 7pm & it helps you to lose weight...

Others say it's beneficial not cause of any weight loss, but cause it gives you a cutoff time to take in your daily calories and not eat carbs too close to bedtime.

I try not to eat too late (latest around 8:30) but sometimes find myself unable to sleep at night and with a hungry tummy that I try to ignore.


Thoughts?
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Replies

  • Lozze
    Lozze Posts: 1,917 Member
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    Not eating after a certain time is completly wrong. Your body and your metabolism works 24 hours. There are reasons you might want to not eat after that time (if you mindless eat, you get stomach pain sleeping on a full stomach) but if you're hungry and have cals left there's no reason not to eat after 7pm.
  • justjenn1977
    justjenn1977 Posts: 437 Member
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    I've heard it's best to not eat after around 7pm & it helps you to lose weight...
    ......
    Thoughts?


    oh goodness... I hope not... I work nights and when I do my first meal of the day is usually around midnight!!

    but anyways... your body doesn't keep a clock and say "oh well it is 7pm I am going to turn all these calories directly into fat"... your body works on a 24 hr day...

    the 7pm deal is just a mind game to cut cals... mindless cals usually consumed while playing on the computer or watching tv and munching snacks...
  • volume77
    volume77 Posts: 670 Member
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    Have lost most my weight eating the majority of my calories at night:)
  • sey214
    sey214 Posts: 15
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    Awesome! Thanks, yall! (: That's what an article I just read said, too. I'm a huge night owl, so that's a bigbigBIG relief!

    PS: I like your ticker, Lozze. (; Ours are twins! (: (Minus the fact that mine hasn't moved...YET!)
  • Lozze
    Lozze Posts: 1,917 Member
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    It's a great ticker Sey!
  • sey214
    sey214 Posts: 15
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    Haha, it is! So cute. (: Can't wait to get to the sunshiney rainbow.
  • brooshie
    brooshie Posts: 141 Member
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    i don't wake up until about 5 p.m due to my schedule, so i hope that's not a problem :P i'm up until about 8 a.m every day!
  • moonlightturk
    moonlightturk Posts: 398
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    Not terrible. It's an old myth. I eat food around 9.30pm ish.

    Okay here's the concept.. Most people who eat around 5/6pm have time to move around and burn calories per say. People who eat around 7/8/9 ish usually end up sleeping an hour or two later which is where it gets tricky.. If you don't move after you eat earlier in the day, it's the same as eating at night.
  • 2011EP
    2011EP Posts: 95 Member
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    I think it's okay to eat a snack a couple hours before sleeping (otherwise you're hungry) but def limit it and make it small. I personally try to not eat carbs after 3 pm and if i eat anything after 7pm its usually fruit or nuts or milk.
  • janemem
    janemem Posts: 575 Member
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    I eat almost all my daily calories between 8pm-10pm, have done for years AND I eat them in bed and go straight to sleep afterwards. It doesn't seem to have caused me any weight loss problems so far. :happy:
  • bathsheba_c
    bathsheba_c Posts: 1,873 Member
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    I think it's supposed to discourage night-time snacking. Even though research totally shows that a small snack of carbs or tryptophan-rich food (milk!) improve sleep.
  • Adveshan
    Adveshan Posts: 8
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    As long as your body knows that it's getting a regular supply of food it will digest it and expend it and not store as much. That's why eating less but more often is beneficial. The only real association that time has to when you eat is your sleeping patterns. That's why people who work graveyard shifts are awake during their shifts; they eat at different times than most people do.
  • ferrytrip
    ferrytrip Posts: 497 Member
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    Night shifter also - would die if I couldnt eat after 7pm.
  • sey214
    sey214 Posts: 15
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    Thanks, yall. (: Have always wondered about it since I hear so many arguments for both sides so often. (:

    So eating x amount of hrs before bed doesn't really matter, regardless of shift. Sorry, shouldn't have specified a time.. was just tryin to name a common hour for most people to catch my drift. (: Wasn't tryin to say night shifters can't eat, haha, was just wondering about the hours before bedtime thing... No matter what your personal bedtime may be. (; Better? (:

    Eventually it's all gotta even out, I'd think. (:
  • HeidiMightyRawr
    HeidiMightyRawr Posts: 3,343 Member
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    Meal timing doesn't matter. I eat after 7, and always have done (including carbs)

    The reason why it may help with weight loss to have a cut-off point is more so that a lot of people snack late at night. They eat all their regular meals AND those snacks, causing them to be over what they need to lose weight or maintain.

    If you are still under your calories for the day (or the week - I prefer to focus on weekly averages) then you will lose weight, regardless of the timing. If you are a late night muncher, then that would just mean that you'd have to eat less throughout the day.
  • LisAllum
    LisAllum Posts: 55
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    I'm a late night snacker! It's just something I can't seem to kick, so I decided to work WITH it instead of against it and I keep a few 100 cal snacks handy for those times. A couple of pieces of dark chocolate, fruit, raw veggies. I don't think it's so much WHAT I eat as the fact that it's the action of eating that's the habit, so I just switched the snacks for healthier options. If your body is hungry, feed it; the trick is to watch what you are feeding it, nothing more hon.

    A lot of people get [ast this by eating around 5 or 6 small meals throughout the day, sadly that won't fit into my daily schedule. You do whatever works best for you! :-) And by the looks of it... you are spot on! Congratulations on an awesome weightloss so far!!
  • tannyasawyer
    tannyasawyer Posts: 106 Member
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    Okay here's the concept.. Most people who eat around 5/6pm have time to move around and burn calories per say. People who eat around 7/8/9 ish usually end up sleeping an hour or two later which is where it gets tricky.. If you don't move after you eat earlier in the day, it's the same as eating at night.

    Agreed - it's more to do with what your body is doing with the food once you've eaten it. If you've eaten loads and are going to be less sedentary (night shift, exercise, etc.), then it'll burn off. Hubby and I have started a brisk (partly uphill) walk around 3 miles every other night around 9pm, so on these days I tend to be fine having my dinner later. Other days if I did have to eat something late, it would be something light and a load of water to keep me going.

    Keep it up, looks like you're doing great!
  • meerkat70
    meerkat70 Posts: 4,616 Member
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    Okay here's the concept.. Most people who eat around 5/6pm have time to move around and burn calories per say. People who eat around 7/8/9 ish usually end up sleeping an hour or two later which is where it gets tricky.. If you don't move after you eat earlier in the day, it's the same as eating at night.

    Agreed - it's more to do with what your body is doing with the food once you've eaten it. If you've eaten loads and are going to be less sedentary (night shift, exercise, etc.), then it'll burn off. Hubby and I have started a brisk (partly uphill) walk around 3 miles every other night around 9pm, so on these days I tend to be fine having my dinner later. Other days if I did have to eat something late, it would be something light and a load of water to keep me going.

    Keep it up, looks like you're doing great!

    Erm no. The body doesn't work this way. This is myth stuff.

    It doesn't matter when you eat. It matters what you eat, and how much you eat. The only slightly correlation that might exist between late night eating and weight gain is that late night snackers tend to eat calorific food. Fix that (or ensure you have enough cals left to incorporate it) and you're sorted.

    I tend to consume most of my calories in the evening. I rarely eat my evening meal before seven, and I always save cals for snacking. It doesn't seem to be holding me back....
  • JuneBPrice
    JuneBPrice Posts: 294 Member
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    Some days I don't get out of bed until around 6:00 PM, so I'm going to have to say no on that one...
  • meerkat70
    meerkat70 Posts: 4,616 Member
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    To the OP... if you're struggling, use the car analogy. Your body requires fuel, just like a car does. Does it make any difference whatsoever to your car's performance and fuel consumption, whether you put the petrol in the tank in the morning or just before bed... ?

    There's also a faulty assumption in the logic of the 'don't eat too late' crowd that your body 'shuts down' when you sleep. It simply doesn't. Your body continues to require cals for maintenance of bodily functions overnight, and can also be quite active (e.g. a lot of 'healing' in the body takes place while snoozing.... )

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