Eat after certain hours?

Depends on your program and what works for you. I am a late to bed & early to rise girl, so the program I chose (because I am actively going till 11pm) allows me to eat at night if needed, but then again, I am only doing 200-300 calories per meal/snack and I am still having a tough time just getting 1200 calories a day....

I was told by my doctor that you should be done with food intake 2 hours before bed. I set a personal goal of 8 p.m. to be done eating by. I typically go to bed between 10 and 11. Some nights are harder than others but I do try.

Whatever nutrition is in your blood and not used up after a certain time frame turns into fat. If you are not active more of that nurtrition will be turned into fat and so for that reason you should not eat for about 2 hours before bed. Yes, typically late night snacking is worse food, but it has ALOT to do with how many calories you are burning after you eat, and late night eating, if you go to bed after you will not burn enough to compensate. ONLY eat at night if you are under 1200 cal for the day to keep your metabolizm up!!!

Eating after certain hours is purely myth. Your body will digest the food regardless and has nothing to do with time of day. The reason many people say it's bad for you, is that you tend to eat bad things late at night - ice cream, chips, etc - things that you'll eat a lot of without realizing it. Also, if you go to bed at midnight, there's no harm in eating at 8pm - you still have 4 hours before going to bed! And I don't know about everyone else, I'm hungry every few hours and that's just setting yourself up for more failure.

Just be sure to eat something good for you "after hours" just like you would with any other snack!

I mostly agree with this although I wouldn't say it's entirely a myth. I think the logic is not to eat big meals at night b/c most people are more sedentary and you don't burn it off as quickly as during the day. In many cultures lunch is the main meal and not dinner for this reason. Dinner is usually a light meal. However, if you are active at night (I often excercise in the evening) then I don't see anything wrong with eating healthy food. I personally eat half my dinner b/f I excercise and the other half later with possibly a small healthy snack. I am trying to stop eating 1-2 hours before bed. Last night I ate my entree at about 7pm, went for a walk from 7:45-8:15 and ate a salad with low fat feta cheese at about 9:00 pm. At 10:00 I craved something sweet so I had a nectarine. I went to sleep around 11:00

Doesn't matter when you eat. the body is constantly burning. Obviously your hourly caloric burn will be less at rest then it is while you're up, or standing around, or exercising. But a calorie is a calorie, eaten or burned. doesn't matter when. And the rule is always the same when you boil down to brass tacks... Calorie in, calorie out!

So long as you take in less than you burn, you'll lose weight. Period. Technically you could eat 1200 calories of chocolate cake everyday, and if you BMR is 1500, then you'd still create a 300 calorie deficit each day, and lose almost a pound each week. Of course what your body will LOOK like will probably not be what you're aiming for.... but you will lose weight, WHY? calorie in, calorie out.

But of course if you're looking for muscle tone and tightness, you'll have to taylor your diet to fuel those elements in the body IE protein for muscles, water and fiber, for leanness and tightness, etc. You are what you eat, trust.

But in terms of WHEN you eat, it doesn't matter. what matters is YOU and when YOU tend to eat the wrong things. For example, my favorite foods are breakfast foods, i know not to go to a waffle house, b/c i'll order the superslam platter, two pecan waffles, extra syrup and butter, and double hashbrowns. So the morning is when i have to be careful. Whereas at night, i'll eat a small bowl of cottage cheese just before bed to give my system a "slow drip" of fuel through the night, and protein for muscle repairs while i sleep and i'm fine....

But if you know boredom, anxiety, or cravings hit you at night, i'd say save your last meal til bedtime. that way you still eat what you planned to, and you get the feeling of eating a lot and feeling full at night.... probably the feeling you're looking for when you want to binge on late night snacks, huh? Good luck.