Going to bed hungry may be OK if you're meeting nutrition requirements on a daily basis or following a healthy weight loss plan. In many cases, a healthy eating schedule may result in you feeling hungry before bedtime.
You could get less shut-eye
You might feel fine after skipping dinner, but when you finally fall asleep, hunger pangs keep the brain mentally alert, causing you to not get enough deep sleep at night, according to registered dietitian Wesley Delbridge, spokesperson for the Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics.
Going to bed hungry can keep insulin low
"When it comes to weight loss, going to bed a little bit hungry can help because it keeps hormones like insulin low, and that can help facilitate weight loss," Davis says. But she reiterates that having a big dinner right before bed has the opposite effect.
“If you are hungry, you should eat something, regardless of the time of day,” says Aimee Takamura, registered dietitian and director of wellness and sustainability at Restaurant Associates. “The act of eating late at night does not affect metabolism or lead to many of the adverse effects you may have heard of.
However, by going to bed on an empty stomach, your blood sugar level may drop, also referred to as hypoglycemia. The condition can be dangerous for people with diabetes and other critical health issues. Even in healthy folks, low blood sugar levels can cause headaches and dizziness and negatively affect sleep.
Going to bed on an empty stomach can leave your stomach empty or wanting to be filled. However, going to bed hungry is considered healthier than eating too close to bedtime. Eating right before bedtime or having a late dinner can lead to increased body mass index (BMI), indigestion or insomnia.
It's best to stop eating about three hours before going to bed. That allows plenty of time for your body to digest the last food you ate so it won't disrupt your sleep, but leaves a small enough window before sleep that you won't go to bed feeling hungry.
If you go to bed on an empty stomach, your body will continue to let you know that it needs feeding throughout the night. This can lead to restless or uncomfortable sleep. You don't need to eat much before bed to cure your growling stomach.
So what can we do when we feel hungry at bedtime? We would suggest that if you do feel hungry before bed, then consider making a light snack packed full of slow releasing energy. Some of our favourites are peanut butter on granary toast, or maybe a bowl of porridge with a few slices of banana.
Up to 811 million people — about 10% of the world's population — regularly go to bed hungry.
Blood levels of a gut hormone called ghrelin (rhymes with “melon”) rise when the stomach is empty, flooding the brain's eating control center and stimulating neurons that govern appetite.
It seems that hunger produces a stomach hormone called ghrelin that not only stimulates appetite but also seems to promote the growth of new brain cells; it even protects those cells from the effects of ageing. Fasting can often result in greater mental clarity and this may be the reason why.
After you eat, it takes about six to eight hours for food to pass through your stomach and small intestine. Food then enters your large intestine (colon) for further digestion, absorption of water and, finally, elimination of undigested food. It takes about 36 hours for food to move through the entire colon.
It's also called rapid gastric emptying. When your stomach empties too quickly, your small intestine receives uncomfortably large amounts of poorly digested food. This can cause symptoms of nausea, bloating, abdominal cramps and diarrhea. It can also cause sudden blood sugar changes.
Good snack-friendly foods to have available if you get hungry include fruits, nuts, berries, plain yogurt and cottage cheese. Try to avoid bringing low-nutrient food choices into your home. If less nutritious snacks are not within arm's reach you won't be tempted to eat them.
A new study by Harvard Medical School investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, US, has found that eating late at night increases hunger, reduce calories burning and is actually capable of changing the metabolism of adults who are overweight or obese, increasing our body fat.
There are many reasons you can gain weight that have nothing to do with food. Sometimes weight gain is easy to figure out. If you've changed your eating habits, added more dessert or processed foods, or have been spending more time on the couch than usual, you can typically blame those reasons if you gain a few pounds.
Weight gain
Your body gains weight when you take in more calories than you burn off. This is the case no matter when you eat. Going to sleep directly after you eat means your body doesn't get a chance to burn off those calories. In fact, eating a big meal and then hitting the couch can be just as harmful.
Why do so many of us get so fat? the answer appears obvious. “The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight,” the World Health Organization says, “is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended.” Put simply, we either eat too much or are too sedentary, or both.
Bedtime hunger may be an indication that you're not eating enough during the day. As a result, your body may be trying to compensate right before bed by taking in extra energy to make up for what it missed earlier.
“The lightest meal of the day should be when you are the least active, for most people this is dinner before bed.” The reasoning behind this is that food is designed to give you energy, he says. This energy can be used to fuel activity or recovery from activity (muscular repair and/or muscle glycogen replenishment).