Seems like a lot of folk have trouble with late night carb eating and eating in general.

Alwyn Cosgrove says that fasted LISS is a waste of time if your calories in exceeds calories out.

Chris Aceto says that Fasted LISS a.m. is the perfect time and vehicle for fat loss due to hormonal input or lack thereof.

Tom Venuto says that late-night carb eating is detrimental because all those extra carb calories go to fat instead of being burned.

So let's say Jimmy (mythical figure that works out and eats) is into a late-night carb addiction and will not drop it for love nor money.

Will he still benefit and shed some fat if he:-

Ceases to eat carbs for breakfast and lunch and consumes only protein in the amount necessary for his muscle repair/growth?

If he last consumed carbs at say 11p.m the night before, then sleeps for eight hours,gets up at 7a.m., does fasted LISS, and then consumes only protein but no furthur carbs until 5 p.m. this will mean he went without carbs for 16 hours, even though later on he might consume 600 calories of carbs or more in the evening.

Now, overall in the complete day his total caloric intake could still be spot-on. Or it might exceed the carb recommended portion somewhat.

But because he's going 16 hours without carbs the rest of the time, plus doing fasted LISS is he going to burn off fat plus the extra calories?

If he consumes a 1000 calories worth of carbs in the evening after 5p.m., some of this is going to go toward Glycogen replacement.

His actual weight-workout day might be different. He might take a shake with carbs after the workout but other than that it would be mostly the same.

Venuto recommends loading the carbs first thing a.m.

But this is because you went through your sleep period carbless and also the previous evening.

So overall...total-day wise, the example given would be more or less the same as his except that you're doing it on a different schedule.

Thoughts? :eat:

I'm not terribly familiar with those specific recommendations, except Venuto, who qualifies his by saying (paraphrase) "if you're getting results by eating carbs at night, then there's no need to cut it out, but if you're stalled, it's a good thing to try"

Severely restricting carbs in the morning to allow for a nighttime binge doesn't sound at all like a good idea to me. I would think that whatever reason Jimmy has for not wanting to drop the nighttime carb eating would also lead him to resist restricting morning carbs. :confused: I think exceptions to guidelines should be considered on an individual basis, because nobody will respond exactly the same way as everyone else.

Well...a lot of times my alter-ego is Jimmy.

I've always liked my evening carbs. But this didn't deter me from sitting down to a big bowl of oatmeal in the morning along with mixed-in Whey/milk/Stevia and also a side of egg-whites.

I far exceed the recommended alotment for carbs on a frequent basis.

But I never gain any appreciable fat. Probably as a result of the ways in which I work out.

In fact to "bulk" I'd probably have to up the anti to twice what I'm eating now.

But my lifts improve on a regular basis.

I respect Venuto's advice.

From other posts I've garnered that 'carb-starving" for prolonged periods may not be the best of all possible worlds though from an insulin/fat standpoint.