Is night the worst time to overeat?

March 23, 2017 Ashley 0 Comments

Ever heard that bedtime’s the worst time to overeat?

(Love this – compared to stock pics of Disney Princess chicks primly snacking in front’ve dimly lit fridges…)

During my interweb meanderings earlier today, I encountered an article that contested this claim. “No,” they said. “This is a myth,” they said. “Overeating at any time of the day is bad,” they said. And, in a way, I get what’s trying to be conveyed here. Too much munching at any hour’s gonna tack on extra calories to your daily gastronomical bill. It’s not like food suddenly has more fat or calories at night. The other part of it comes from the reason people even ask this question about P.M. ingestion – because that’s the main time most folk tend to overdo it. Comfort munching’s a way to unwind from the stress of the day, for many. So, I get that.

However, what this doesn’t address is the fact that our gastro factory doesn’t operate in a vacuum.

In other words, when you eat late (whether it’s overeating or not) and then head to bed, something dreadful happens. And it can wage a war on your weight loss goals – albeit indirectly. See, eating too much, too late, or both in the eve incurs a host of horrible things. It can upset your sleep, spike your adrenaline, and make digestion sluggish. This, in turn, sets your body off, making you wake up intermittently during your sleep cycle. (And, yes, that happens whether you recognize it – like yours truly, rising to void every other hour – or not.) Now, the problem with that may not seem weight loss related. But, when you consider the massive factor depriving yourself of Z’s plays in weight maintenance, it most certainly does. See, the thing is, when you scrimp on sleep – voluntarily or not – your next day’s totally thrown off. (And, no, I don’t just mean that moment when you realize you’re vacuuming the front lawn.) The stress from insufficient slumbering kicks in as cortisol, and hoards fat. Second, you begin making poor dietary decisions. (It’s legitimately easy to justify cupcakes with crushed Cheetos and bacon bits sprinkled on them as part’ve a balanced snack plan, when you’re running low on focus fumes.) Especially when studies show that briefer sleep stints make for more hunger hormone in your body. And, third, that lack of willpower also carries over to the other part of weight loss – exercise – making you less likely to log a workout later. (Even appeasing my caffeine addiction can’t convince me to hit the gym if I’m sufficiently sleepy.)

“What? I *am* working out. It’s jaw day.”

So, what’s the fix? Well, a good tip might be to keep it light at night – sure. But keeping eating early and enlisting a curfew for consumption might be even better. No, we don’t want to “overdo” our caloric consumption at any point in the day. However, the later you take in those nutrients you need, the more likely it is to interfere with the next page in your daily somatic chapter: sleeping. ’cause going straight from digestion to dreamtime’s a tough process – one that’ll ultimately make weight loss just as tough, too.

In sum? The culprit may not be nocturnal noshing itself.

But too much of it too late can still wreak a detrimental domino effect on your body and weight loss goals.