Is it too late to eat?

If your hungry then yes should eat, on days you aren't and you only have around 100 left then its ok not to eat... I just ate dinner and its 9:30, I couldn't help it cause I had to be somewhere from 6 to 9... I ran this morning so I needed to make sure to eat enough today and I'm going to bed soon since I have to be up at 5 and I'm not worried about it. Some will say that you shouldn't eat after 7 but I think as long as you stay within your calories than your ok, its not like your having this HUGE meal right before going to bed, good luck!

~Leash

I agree I go to bed between midnight and 2 and am up between 8 and 9 but i usually have 300 to 500 calories to eat around 9oclock sometimes i dont eat anything after 9 but if i am hungry i know i have calories left to eat. if i do eat its usually an apple with peanut butter or oatmeal so the protein makes me feel full

"It doesn't really matter when you eat, only how many calories you eat and burn in a day. Whether you're eating in the morning or at midnight your body turns any extra calories into fat. In fact, eating a light snack -- like cheese and crackers -- before bed may help you sleep better."

- http://weightloss.about.com/library/quiz/blmyth6_b.htm

"Eating more calories than you use all day leads to weight gain; eating fewer leads to weight loss. So, in theory, no matter when you eat them, as long as the number of calories you eat each day matches how many you burn, you won’t gain weight."

-http://health.msn.com/weight-loss/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100199674

"...eating in the evening won’t stop you from losing weight, but consuming too many calories throughout the day, will! Providing you stick to your daily calorie allowance you’ll lose weight, regardless of the time when you consume those calories. I suggest you get into the habit of planning ahead, though, and always make sure you have enough calories left for your dinner."

-http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/weight_loss/losing_weight/eating_time.htm

Thanks that really helped me out too

To add to all of the great comments, you should ensure that you at least allow your food to digest easily before going to bed, so it's best to eat less two hours or more before bed. Our bodies work hard to digest certain foods, especially meat. Since I go to bed at 9:45"ish, I try not to eat after 7:45pm.

I am a biology student at Northwestern University, and our biological department recently published a study about late night eating. I have posted it below!


Timing Is Everything: New Research Says Late-Night Eating Increases Weight Gain
BY L. K. REGAN
PUBLISHED SEP 22, 2009
Every body-conscious gay man has heard the adage "calories in, calories out." Heck, some of us have it tattooed somewhere on our body! But two studies in the last couple of months have put new doubt to that notion. In short, it may not only matter what you eat, but when you eat it.

Both studies, one published in June of this year, the other earlier this month, seek to solve the conundrum of shift workers, who are typically heavier than day-scheduled workers despite reporting no real difference in diet. The first study, presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in June, surveyed a group of sleep-restricted subjects who were given free access to as much food as they liked. The researchers found that, despite reporting reductions in appetite, cravings, and food consumption, the subjects nonetheless gained weight over the course of the study. According to lead investigator Dr. Siobhan Banks, a research fellow at the University of South Australia and former assistant research professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the combination of a laboratory setting and the extra time for snacking provided by sleep deprivation may have led to more eating than the subjects were aware of. As Dr. Banks told the conference, "During real-world periods of sleep restriction (say during shift work), people should plan their calorie intake over the time they will be awake, eating small, healthy meals. Additionally, healthy low fat/sugar snacks should be available so the temptation to eat comfort foods is reduced. Finally, keeping up regular exercise is just as important as what food you eat, so even though people may feel tired, exercising will help regulate energy intake balance."

That sounds manageable, but a second study, conducted at Northwestern University and published in the September 3 online journal Obesity, seems to imply that the problem is not that we eat more than we think—it's that late-night calories are actually processed differently than daytime ones. The Northwestern team found that in mice, eating at irregular times (the equivalent of the middle of the night for humans) caused weight gain. Though its subjects were rodents as opposed to humans, this study is the first proof of a causal relation between meal time and weight gain. For this study, mice were divided into two groups, and given as much high-fat food as they wanted during a 12-hour feeding period. The only difference: one group had those 12 eating hours during their normal wakeful time of day, and the other group had them while they would ordinarily be asleep. Result: the group that had to eat when their bodies would typically want to sleep gained 48 percent over their original weight, while the other mice, despite the same caloric intake and activity level, gained only 20 percent.

In both studies, the experimental models give some pause. In the first case, spending a few wakeful nights in a sleep laboratory is hardly the same as consistently working and eating at night. In the second case, leaving aside the question of the applicability of rodent studies to humans, these mice were suddenly offered a very high-fat diet—leaving open the question of whether ordinary caloric intake would cause the same effect. In general, one major question is the applicability of this research to people who may not be shift workers but who, as for so many of us, can't get dinner on the table before 9 PM. Is a late evening meal or snack really the same for our bodies as a full four AM meal? This research is a new effort at finding an answer to exactly that question.

Still, the researchers think that their results indicate the basic role of circadian rhythms in the body's fuel consumption—and storage. Says Fred Turek, a professor of neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern who was lead author on the second study, "We think some factors are under circadian control. Better timing of meals, which would require a change in behavior, could be a critical element in slowing the ever-increasing incidence of obesity." In other words, no more hitting the fridge in the middle of the night.