4 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Eat Late At Night

It has always been said and believed that eating late at night causes weight gain. But do you really know the reasons why it is advised that one should not eat late at night?

Now here is the scientific fact.

It’s the total amount of calories you eat and burn in a single day that determines whether you lose weight or gain it.

The human body burns fat 24/7 whether you are awake or sleeping. However, during the daytime when activity level is high, more calories are burnt than during the night time when fewer calories are burnt due to the fact that body movement is limited and restricted during sleep.

When one is sleeping, the human body is under a “restorative mode”, it’s time all the repairs and metabolic process of energy rejuvenation takes place.

Hence sleeping time should be had under the most conducive environment for its health benefits to be fully accomplished.

When one eats late at night,

the after effects of late night eating alters this restorative mode, and causes the energy rejuvenation process to be halted or affected.

Here are the effects of late night eating.

1. Fluctuations in Sleeping Pattern

The digestive process can have a serious effect on the sleep pattern if the wrong food is taken at night. For example, if you take a high sugar content food or too much meat at night, it takes the body longer time to complete the digestive process, and this can cause cramps in the stomach which ultimately makes the person uncomfortable and makes a sound sleep impossible.

2. Excess Urination And Excretion

If food is eaten around 10pm, the digestion of this food starts and lasts for the next couple of hours which extends to 1 – 3am in the early hours of the day. This causes the urination and excretion which is a by-product of digestion to start taking place during the sleeping time.

And when this happens, you’re forced to use the restroom to ease yourself often at night.

In contrast, if you eat your night meal between 7-8pm, you still have till 10 – 11pm for all of the urination and excretion to take place before going to bed, and so it’s always a good choice if you eat 2 – 3 hours before going to bed.

And if you feel hungry before then, you can always snack on moderate amounts of fruits, nuts or vegetables before retiring for the day.

3. Weight Gain

It’s a know fact that weight gain happens when one eat at night. And so a good portion of the foods eaten late in the night have a tendency to be stored as fat especially when the wrong choices of food is eaten at night.

Additionally, the metabolic process of the body is low during sleep, so less activity ultimately means that less calories will be burnt, and this could result to undigested portions of the food to be stored as fat in the areas where fats are deposited like the belly, thighs, arms, buttocks etc.

4. The Danger of Over-eating

People who eat late at night have a tendency to overeat because of the intense hunger they feel from the past 6 – 7 hours of their last meal which happened in the afternoon.

And when one overeats, the digestive system is under serious stress to digest all the foods eaten, and uses a good portion of the total energy reserve you have to aid digestion and that is why people who over eat feels tired because the energy they need is already in use by the body to help digestion.

Worse still, majority of the food will not be burnt or converted to energy as there is less movements of the body to help in converting this food to energy, and instead it’s stored as fat in the body.

To avoid the dangers of late night eating, here are tips that will help you.

1. Stock Up Foods Weekly

On weekends, it’s always a good idea to shop for healthy foods that will last you for the next one week or so. You’ll need to buy foods that would not spoil quickly. Foods such as nuts, apples, eggs, cucumber, carrots, beans etc and store the edible ones in the fridge for preservation.

That way, you’ll always have ready food available to choose from when you want to snack or cook in the evening.

2. Choose Your Meals Wisely

There is a mistake we all tend to make when we are very hungry. We tend to want to eat whatever is available, unfortunately, most stores and restaurants available do not always have the best combinations of healthy meals we need.

It’s always a healthy option to have more protein foods in the night, than a starchy or sugary foods. The reason is protein foods are more filling, and do not evoke the craving for more foods later in the night than starch foods does. Moreover, protein foods, when not consumed in too much quantity keeps you alert and help you enjoy a better sleep.

To combat that, we need to know how to properly combine our every day meals in such a way that we will get result eating them instead of gaining weight. One resource that have a good selection of proper diets or meal plan that can be eaten 5 times in a day is the 4 Week Detox Diet.

Here’s is a selection of healthy night meals for a five day period culled from the 4-week Detox Diet.

Day 1- Dinner
Fresh Fish Peppersoup

Day 2- Dinner
Chicken + Vegetable Stew

Day 3- Dinner
Fruit Salad + 1 Boiled Egg

Day 4- Dinner
Unripe Plantain Poridge + Fish

Day 5- Dinner
Sweet Potatoes Poridge + Plenty veggies

Note that these foods are best eaten at night. If you need more of this type
of food plan, you can get the 4-Week Detox Diet here.

3. Before You Snack After Dinner, T.H.I.N.K

When you feel an urge to eat something at night, few hours after dinner, it’s always a better decision to pause and think the exact reason why you want to eat that extra food. Ask yourself, “Am I really hungry?“, if you’re, it’s better you get an apple, nuts, mango, coconut, a boiled egg, etc to eat to help you quench the hunger.

If you’re NOT hungry after eating dinner, ask yourself, “Why do I feel like eating something?” Is it out of habit, or you have some emotional reasons such as feeling of loneliness, anxiety, anger, or depression? If you go ahead to eat because of these reasons, it’s likely that you’re eating more calories than your body needs. It’s always a better option to drink water, take a walk, read something or simply go to bed. The desire will subside after a while if you engage your mind with other things.

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