no food after a certain time

The thing with our sleep cycles is that there are numerous critical processes going on, and our body behaves very differently during deep sleep - lowered heart rate, blood pressure, increased blood flow to the muscles - that it ever does during waking hours, even if we're 'resting'.

Our body produces the critical growth hormones, and performs tissue repair - things that actually don't happen with any concentration during waking hours - only during the deep sleep section of our rest. Part of the hormone release is for ghrelin and leptin, the two hormones that dictate when we feel hungry and full. The really critical thing is that leptin (the 'fullness' hormone) has been discovered to have a circadian rhythm. This means that the timings of our meals are actually quite important, if we don't want to fool our body's natural hormonal patterns - especially during our sleep cycle. It's also been conclusively proven that leptrin and cortisol are intrinsically linked - and we all know that stress and eating too much is a fatal combination when trying to lose weight!

I do get that, for some people, shift work and very busy lifestyles mean that eating rather close to bedtime is unavoidable, but people should be aware that they are perhaps making life much harder for themselves, and their body, in doing so. Changing the main meal to earlier in their day is one way to counteract this, I'd imagine. After all, this was the norm several hundred years ago, before industrialisation - and many countries with traditional cultures still have their largest meal in the middle of their day (no matter what time they wake and sleep). That can't be an accident!

hamptontom wrote: »

but it seems to stand to reason that you're forcing your metabolisms' hand in the direction of burning existing fat stores if you go to sleep on as empty a stomach as possible...wouldn't it?

People focus way too much on burning fat vs. burning what you are eating at any particular time (same issue with the arguments for fasted exercise or the "fat burning zone"). You burn a particular amount throughout the day (including when you sleep). If that amount is more than you eat, you are going to be burning fat. If you burn fat when exercising (or when sleeping) rather than the food you've eaten (or the glucose created), that food has to go somewhere, so it becomes fat. Basically I think of it as we are burning fat and adding new fat constantly. The goal is to burn more than we add, so we are net losers. You can't really cheat the process by not eating carbs or not eating before bed or exercising only long and slow or when fasted. It will even out anyway.

Thus, I think the most important thing is to eat in a way that will make you best able to keep calories where they should be and to help you be active. If you are more likely to be active if you eat earlier, do that. If you find you wake up raring to work out if you eat late, do that. If you find eating dinner late makes it easier not to overeat in the evening, do that. If you find it would be impossible to eat earlier and it would make you unhappy to skip dinner (this is me), then don't fret about it, it doesn't matter.

CjF1960 wrote: »

Being a diabetic, I find that my morning sugar readings are much better if I don't eat after 7:30 in the evening, especially have to go easy on the carbs in the evening.

I also a diabetic, but I other the way around I find a small snack around 7:30-8:00 before I go to bed I have better morning sugar reading, then when I don't have a snack before bed. So now I always plan a small evening snack.

I've never set a cut off time, and I really don't see any reason to.

AlciaMode wrote: »

Some studies suggest that taking a break from eating, a short fast, for about 14 hours is beneficial to weightloss. Hence why many people do not eat for some hours prior to going to bed.

Intermittent fasting

I rarely eat after 7pm, which is about 12 hours after I get up.