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Late-Night Eating: Worse Than You Think

September 7, 2009
By J White

You would think that eating the same amount of calories regardless of the day would not matter. In fact, as long as you do not overeat, you should be able to maintain or lose the weight, right?

Well, as reasonable as this may sound, eating at certain times of the day does matter and it can have a significant effect on your waistline. In a recent study published in Obesity, researchers at Northwestern found that eating at irregular times, that is at night, influences weight gain.

The researchers believe that your circadian rhythm, which is the 24-hour cycle of all living entities, has a biological effect on how you gain weight. By better timing when you eat, they theorized that this could help curb the obesity epidemic.

To test their theory, they tested rats over a six week period to determine if their feeding time influenced their weight gain. The animals, nocturnal by nature, were allowed to eat either 12 hours during the day or 12 hours during the night. The food that they ate was high in fat, and their activity during their feeding time was virtually the same.

The rats that ate at night, the normal eating time for them, gained 20 percent more from their previous weight. Those that ate during the day, however, gained 48 percent more from their previous baseline. As you can see, by simply changing the time in which they ate, the amount of weight the rats put on changed dramatically.

The implications for humans are apparent. The more you eat late at night, the easier it is for your body to gain weight. The reason for this can be traced back to your circadian clock, which governs your daily activities, when you eat, when you sleep, and from the suggestions of these findings, how your body regulates energy.

In essence, when you deviate out of your normal body cycle, the effects on your body weight can be none to pleasing.

Tips to Break the Late-Night Snack Attack

Given the advertisements that let you know how easy it is for you to eat at all hours of the night, as well as for those who work the night shift, changing the timing of your eating patterns may be challenging. However, for the sake of a flatter belly, it can be done. Here are three tips to start you on your way.

Eat Breakfast

Missing meals, especially breakfast, can have a devastating effect on how you feel and the amount of food you eat during your next feeding. By eating breakfast you not only supply yourself with energy to start your day, you also are maintaining an eating pattern that is in line with your body’s internal clock.

Eat a Bigger Lunch

Even though you should always watch the amount of calories you are eating, if you are to overeat, this is the time to do it. Eating at this time helps your body to digest the food easier since you are still awake and active.

Make your last meal of the day no later than 6 in the evening

Since you now know the perils of late night eating, try to have your evening meal, in the evening, no later than 6 PM, and not at night.

For those of you who work at night, the best thing that you can do for your body is to eat as light as possible. Besides keeping the weight off, eating less should make it easier for you to stay awake at night.

Sources:
Obesity: Published online 3 September 2009
Northwestern University (2009, September 7). That Late-night Snack: Worse Than You Think. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 7, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2009/09/090903110800.htm

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