Eating before sleeping makes you gain fat. I saw it on TV one time that says its a myth. That you can only gain weight if you consume more than what you need in a day.

Eating before sleeping makes you gain fat. I saw it on TV one time that says its a myth. That you can only gain weight if you consume more than what you need in a day.

The TV show was 100% correct.

My experience says -- the biggest factor in fat loss is calorie counting -- input vs. output. However, you want to keep your metabolism high, so eating right before bed is not too helpful, especially carbs. If you eat carbs right before bed, your body will probably turn it right into fat (especially pasta or coke or something like that). However, if you have an overall deficit of calories, your body will need to pull those calories from somewhere. If you have a good number of calories, the extra ones will be pulled from fat, so it all works out in the end. However, if you really want burn as many calories as possible, don't eat at that time, but eat when you can burn the calories immediately, that will raise your metabolism, keep it stable, and you'll be burning like lighting!

So, will it make you grow to be a fat lard-butt? No. Is it helpful for fat loss? Not really. Good idea? No. Can you lose fat while doing it? Probably, yes. But why would you want to?

Ok. Here's what I think - and have gotten from gathering information around on this board.

If your the normal person, not eating before bed is a good idea. It helps - for that person, they eat too many calories anyway, and if they eat at night it's usually some ice cream or cheesecake. Taking that out of their diet is a great idea.

What we are doing in here -
1. Monitoring our diets closely
2. Making sure we don't lose muscle
3. At the same time we lose fat

So, in the objective to lose fat AND gain muscle by having small meals throughout the day, not eating before bed DOESN'T help.

Eating before bed is perfectly fine.

Why wouldn't it be?

The only argument I've found that seems logical is that you don't burn as many calories during sleep - i.e. you are inactive, so what you eat is more likely to turn to fat.

Sounds logical, but few people take the time to check it out.

Turns out that during 8 hours of sleep, you burn more calories than you would sitting at your desk for 3 hours.

Interesting ... it seems no one has a fear of consuming carbs during the day, then sitting at their desk for 3 hours, but when they will be burning MORE calories, i.e. at night ... there is an issue?

This is one of those old "seemed to be logical until science checked it out" myths.

The truth is that your total calories are more important. The people who had success cutting out meals before bed had success because they cut out calories. They could have just as well cut out a different meal.

Having said that, it doesn't make sense to load on a huge amount of carbs when your body is recovering/refueling. During the day, you can eat frequently, so it's okay to have certain meals. During the night, however, you go the longest time without food (that's why at breakfast, you "break your fast") ... so it makes sense to take in food that will digest for a long, long time (i.e. supply nutrients for as long as possible).

This means whey is NOT a good choice before bed, because it is a very fast digesting protein. Just like cream of rice or other starchy carbs aren't the best, either. The key is something high in fiber - for example, vegetables or a fiber shake, and a slow-digesting protein, like a whole food meat or perhaps casein or a protein blend if you use a shake. Adding a healthy fat slows digestion and will contribute to the effect as well.

I personally take a fiber shake with a tablespoon of healthy fats mixed in before bed.

Jeremy

I agree with what the TV said, eating before bed is fine. As long as your meal is healthy and preferably slow-digesting. Personally I like going to bed a bit hungry, but if not, sometimes I eat a fruit or a bowl of oatmeal, or even have my dinner 15 minutes before laying down. Just keep in mind the calories in VS the calories out.
And also, most of us don't care much about it, but the truth is, pre-bed meal seems to be the most important meal of the day, because you'll be consuming nothing for the past 8 or more hours... :confused:

i dont want to say what is right or wrong just rather i feel that much better in the morning if i dont eat the night before...i train at 6am straight out of bed and i can feel the diff if i ate before bed or not...

Myth. As mentioned before though, most people have something like cheese, cake or a chocolate bar before bed so all those calories are gonna be converted to fat when you sleep. I know my dad munches on peanuts, cheese and bread before bed and that's definitely not good. I'd actually recommend something like cabbage (low cal, low GI) before bed so you give your body something to work with while sleeping.

If you can stand cabbage... BLEH!

I know my dad munches on peanuts, cheese and bread before bed and that's definitely not good. I'd actually recommend something like cabbage (low cal, low GI) before bed so you give your body something to work with while sleeping.
Nothing wrong with peanuts, cheese or bread late night, infact it's better to have that then straight cabbage before bed.

Peanuts combine good healthy fats w/ fiber & protein

Cheeses, especially things like low fat cottage cheese are great sources of slow proteins, so nothing wrong there either...

Bread, long as it's good whole grain bread with excellent nutritional value, how is that bad?

Hi guys, I feel like I need to make a comment here. Btw, I'm new to these forums, but I've been "fitnessing" for a couple of years, vacuuming various sources for fitness/diet/training information. (Btw, John, nice xform!)

Anyway, there's already been a study on this, if I remember correctly, where they established that the metabolically reason for this recommendation is highly personal, but one fact is valid: the metabolism slows down during the day, during several factors, amongst them being hormonal and the "daily biological clock". For some persons it will slow down more than for others.

The above mentioned "biological clock" is said to be a factor in the production of hormons, mainly melatonin, which influences the production of dopamine (hapiness) and also messes around with the metabolism. The same study showed that people on a night shift stood the quadruple risk of becoming (being) overweight. So having a meal as the last thing you do is not a good idea for people whose metabolism slow down significantly.

Bottomline, since this is highly individual, it's a safe overall advice to say "don't eat 3 hours before bed", since that will apply to almost everybody. And as Jeremy L said, try it on your own, if you gain, don't eat so close to bedtime, if you don't, do it.

I'll try to regain the url to this specific information for your reading.

George.

If our muscles need a constant flow of protein, it makes sense to have some protein before bed. If our muscles go eight hours without food, I would think that we'd lose a little muscle along with fat. Maybe we'd gain more muscle if we'd eat some protein before bed, and when we get up in the middle of the night to pee, we could down a protein shake to help build muscle.

Nothing wrong with peanuts, cheese or bread late night, infact it's better to have that then straight cabbage before bed.

Peanuts combine good healthy fats w/ fiber & protein

Cheeses, especially things like low fat cottage cheese are great sources of slow proteins, so nothing wrong there either...

Bread, long as it's good whole grain bread with excellent nutritional value, how is that bad?


No,they're not unhealthy as in they are natural sources. But they are a lot of calories right before bed. He doesn't eat low fat cottage cheese, just regular cheese. The bread he munches on is Greek village bread which is very healthy but again high in calories. Imagine a bowl of peanuts(salted), 3-4 slices of wholegrain bread and 100g of cheese. That's A LOT of calories before bed. I don't know about you but my last meal isn't over 300kcal. What we have here is 400kcal of bread, 200kcal of peanuts and 200 kcal of cheese. Are you telling me that 800kcal worth of food (a lot of fat too) before bed is good?

If you're a sumo wrestler.

No,they're not unhealthy as in they are natural sources. But they are a lot of calories right before bed. He doesn't eat low fat cottage cheese, just regular cheese. The bread he munches on is Greek village bread which is very healthy but again high in calories. Imagine a bowl of peanuts(salted), 3-4 slices of wholegrain bread and 100g of cheese. That's A LOT of calories before bed. I don't know about you but my last meal isn't over 300kcal. What we have here is 400kcal of bread, 200kcal of peanuts and 200 kcal of cheese. Are you telling me that 800kcal worth of food (a lot of fat too) before bed is good?

Eating before bed is perfectly fine.

Turns out that during 8 hours of sleep, you burn more calories than you would sitting at your desk for 3 hours.

Interesting ... it seems no one has a fear of consuming carbs during the day, then sitting at their desk for 3 hours, but when they will be burning MORE calories, i.e. at night ... there is an issue?

This is one of those old "seemed to be logical until science checked it out" myths.
Jeremy

I have read the same things and follow it as well. I have yet to have an increase in weight because of eating at night before going to bed. :tu:

Getting my cushy sit down job back however did cause the increase :mad:

Are you telling me that 800kcal worth of food (a lot of fat too) before bed is good?
I don't quite think I said anything remotely close to eating large amounts of calories as being good, nor did I ever even suggest it :lol: you never once mentioned amounts, only to say it was "definitely not good", so in reference to that, I assumed you meant the foods he was eating were not good, not how much.

Too much of anything is usually not going to be a good thing regardless of time of day...

can someone do me a favor and list a number of slow digeting proteins? okay cottage cheese is one.... what else? anotherwords just a list of foods that would be okay or good before bed.

One big disadvantage of waiting 3 hours between your last meal of the day and going to sleep is that it cuts down the number of hours available for sleep.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this.

can someone do me a favor and list a number of slow digeting proteins? okay cottage cheese is one.... what else? anotherwords just a list of foods that would be okay or good before bed.
Milk... other than that I don't know more :o But one thing I know, Nitro-tech created a protein supplement that's suppose to give you a slow release of protein and other nutrients needed by your body to repair while you sleep. The only downfall is, the price is so damn high :lol:

can someone do me a favor and list a number of slow digeting proteins? okay cottage cheese is one.... what else? anotherwords just a list of foods that would be okay or good before bed.

egg whites and veggies (omlete) is a perfect before bed meal ;)