It’s an amazing feeling when you can get home from work with plenty of time to put together a delicious food for you, your family or your closest friends. Making sure you and your loved ones are stocked up on delicious food when it’s still early enough to wind down with a few episodes of your favorite show can make you feel fulfilled. But while this scenario may represent ideal circumstances, the reality is that life doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes you end up working late, or your evening schedule just gets too busy to have dinner ready on the table.
If you have made a habit of late night dinners on a regular basis, you have probably wondered if or how this routine could affect your health. It has been said that eating later in the evening can be “bad for you”, with the general consensus what time is ideal to take the final bites of the day which normally falls somewhere around 7:00 p.m.—but is that true?
We talked to some dieticians to get to the bottom of what eating late at night does to your body. Surprisingly, their answers revealed both pros Y cons! Read on to find out what happens to your body when you eat after 7pm every day, and for more helpful tips, check out 40 best and worst foods to eat before bed.
According to Lauren Manaker, MS, RDN, LDN, CLECand author of The new mom’s pregnancy cookbook Y Feeding Male FertilityEating a healthy snack in the evening can be helpful for people with certain health complications.
“For people with Diabetes type 1 or a glycogen storage problem, eating a snack before bed can help people have better blood glucose control,” says Manaker.
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while a night snack o Eating late may be easier if you’ve had a busy day, which some dietitians warn can lead to more weight gain around your abdominal area.
“To reduce abdominal fat, you may want to avoid late night snacks,” He says Trista Best, MPH, RD, LDand consultant to Balance One Supplements. “This is more than just not going to the pantry or the fridge in the evenings after dinner. I have found with some clients that having them eat only when the sun is out has allowed them to experience weight loss, specifically the kind that walks over there. the belly.”
You may be wondering why eating only during the day can help with belly fat. Best believes this is due to two main components.
“For one thing, eating based on daylight reduces the window for eating from about 15 hours to just 12 hours,” she says. “Also, the foods you typically eat after dark when you’re just feeling the urge to eat are more calorie-dense and typically loaded with sugar or refined carbohydrates, which tend to lead specifically to belly fat.”
Best also points out that eating late or just before bed can cause symptoms of GERD feel worse or more intense.
“Stomach acid can feel worse at night because you’ve been eating all day and your gut starts to slow down digestion at night, and eating late at night can make this worse, regardless of the quality or quantity of food you eat.” consume,” she says.
This also has to do with the fact that you are less likely to move around a lot at night.
“[You] they are more likely to be sedentary or to lie on their backs, which can cause acid from the intestine to move up into the esophagus,” explains Best.
It can be frustrating to lie down for a restful night’s sleep only to wake up in the middle of your sleep and disrupt your REM cycle. Unfortunately, eating later in the evening could play a role in this discomfort.
“data sample that people who eat closer to bed may be associated with nighttime awakenings, especially if it’s within three hours of bedtime,” says Manaker.
With that in mind, eating before 7 pm can be helpful because it gives your body enough time to relax and digest what you’ve consumed before you go to sleep.
Although there are a handful of more negative side effects, eating later can also have some benefits, especially if you like to work out towards the end of the day. According to Rachel good, RDNintuitive eating counselor and founder of At the Pointe Nutrition, eating later in the evening can be especially advantageous for the muscles, allowing for their propensity to repair and endurance during intense exercise.
“Especially for those who exercise in the evening hours and for athletes, glycogen is depleted quite quickly. Therefore, restoring muscle glycogen levels with food will help maintain energy for the next morning,” he says. Fine. “[Eating late in the evenings] It can also help stimulate muscle protein synthesis, which supports muscle rebuilding and recovery,” he continues.
