What's the best time to stop eating before bed? 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 want to maintain or lose weight, then you shouldn't eat after 7 p.m. There are myriad reasons why people might not want to eat after a certain time in the evening, especially if it's close to when they go to sleep, says Cara Harbstreet, M.S., R.D., L.D., owner of Street Smart Nutrition..
Myth: You Shouldn't Eat After 7 P.M.
“However, there's no magic to the 7 p.m. time,” Dobbins says. “Losing weight is a matter of limiting our calorie intake, and most people tend to eat most of their calories in the evening, at dinner and snacking afterward.
Overeating before the bedtime increases the risk of indigestion and heartburn, resulting in restlessness and sleeplessness. Eating late also sends a message to the brain to keep active that further prevents the body from powering down.
Human studies don't support this theory. A study involving 1,620 children found no significant difference between evening meal timing, energy intake, and weight gain. If you're hungry after dinner, keep light snacks handy.
You definitely don't need to go to bed hungry, and there is nothing wrong with a nighttime snack. However, eating a big meal right before bed can make it harder to fall asleep and stay asleep. A large meal that is high in calories causes your body temperature to rise as you digest.
Having a decent overnight fast may be a great place to start to give your gut bacteria a helping hand. Having a 10-12-hour overnight period, say 7pm-7am where no food is consumed, is a very traditional way of eating.
The goal is to eat every 3 to 4 hours in order to keep your blood sugar consistent and for your stomach to optimally digest. Setting this schedule consistently across days can also help curb overeating which can lead to bloating or indigestion.
One of the most common, easy-to-follow schedules is 16:8. This means you fast for a 16-hour period of time and eat your daily meals during an 8-hour period of time. For example, you may want to fast from 7 p.m. until 11 a.m. the next day.
Compared to eating earlier in the day, prolonged delayed eating can increase weight, insulin and cholesterol levels, and negatively affect fat metabolism, and hormonal markers implicated in heart disease, diabetes and other health problems, according to results from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the ...
Timing and Weight-Loss Takeaways
Overall, the takeaway here is this: while it's highly individualized, some general guidelines suggest that eating breakfast by 9 a.m., lunch between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m., and dinner at least four hours before bed can set your body up for optimal digestion and absorption of nutrients.
The best time to have your breakfast is within two hours of waking up. Having breakfast after waking up is good for your metabolism, say experts.
Some suggest that having 5-6 small meals in a day is better than having 3 large meals in a day as it helps to boost metabolism, resulting in quick weight loss.
The Theory: Nutrition experts tend to recommend eating 3 balanced meals (350 to 600 calories each) and 1 to 3 snacks per day (between 150 and 200 calories each). The calories for each meal and snack depend on a variety of factors including, height, weight, age, gender and activity level.
20:4 fasting involves fasting for 20 hours per day and eating during a four-hour window. It is a type of intermittent fasting that is categorized as time-restricted eating (TRE), where the focus is on when you can and cannot eat rather than what you can and cannot eat.
By restricting calorie consumption to a specific time period each day or week (for example, only eating between 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.), you could lose weight, decrease your risk of cancer, reduce blood pressure, and improve blood-sugar control, as Business Insider previously reported.
What is the 12-hour intermittent fasting method? The 12-hour intermittent fasting method involves eating all your meals within a 12-hour window and then fasting for the remaining 12 hours that day. For example, if you finish dinner at 7 PM, you don't eat breakfast until 7 AM the next day.
Will Sleeping After Eating Make You Fat? No, sleeping after meals will not necessary make you fat. While it may seem like eating before bedtime would lead to weight gain because you are not burning off the calories you've consumed.
“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.