This question seems to be a hot topic of conversation with regard to weight gain.
How late should you eat? Should you avoid eating before bed? Should you avoid carbs late? There seems to be no clear answer.
I've heard many people claim that they avoid eating after 8pm because they believe that they will gain weight while they sleep because their bodies store those excess calories as fat.
So what is the real answer? Well, according to Natalie Digate Muth, MD, MPH, RD (all these designations mean that she knows only slightly more than me), eating late is not the problem.
Hallelujah! She explains that it is about calories in, calories out.
If you eat more calories than you burn, no matter what time of the day, you will gain weight.
Eat fewer calories than you burn, no matter what time of the day, you will lose weight.
She cites several possible reasons why eating before bed might lead to weight gain, the most interesting being that when we eat late, we tend to overindulge on empty calorie snacks that push us over the calorie threshold that we burn daily (Picture me sitting on my couch at 10pm with a bag of chips watching an infomercial for Ab Flex).
Of course if you eat empty calorie foods like chips and candy, you will gain weight.
But you could gain weight eating those foods at any time of the day.
Dr.
Muth did site several studies that have been done on mice that suggested weight gain for those mice that ate when they would normally be sleeping (guess they were watching infomercials and eating chips).
However, these studies are far from conclusive since we aren't mice.
In my personal experience, I ate after 8pm every day on my 20 Minute Fat Loss program and still managed to slash my body fat by 54% in 3 months.
I usually drank a protein shake and ate a piece of fruit as my last meal, which routinely occurred as late as 10pm.
If you use EAS 100% Whey Protein and an apple or pear, you get about a 200-caloire snack.
Now, had I eaten a cheeseburger, I probably would have gained fat.
But in my experience, if you create a calorie deficit while eating nutritious foods, you don't have to obsess about not eating late at night.