Late Night Eating: What's The Deal?

The Premise

The idea behind eating late at night being bad for weight loss is pretty simple and seems to make sense at first.

When you sleep, your activity levels drop, leading to a lower metabolic rate and a lower calorie burn over night. Therefore, proponents of avoiding pre-bed eating argue that you simply don’t need any calories before you hit the sheets, and that calories consumed late are more likely to be stored as fat.

Sounds plausible, but when you delve a little deeper, there’s no truth in this whatsoever.

Firstly, the assumption that your body simply slows down to zero and does virtually nothing is false.

This may not be as many as you burn during the day when up and moving around, and it certainly isn’t as many as when you’re exercising, but you are still burning calories.

Secondly, your body doesn’t work on a 24 hours clock. When midnight hits, it doesn’t simply just start anew, and store all the calories you’ve eaten that day that haven’t been burned yet. It is a far more complex machine, that requires a constant energy input to keep working. You might not burn those pre-bed calories right away, but you can be pretty certain you’ll burn off a few overnight and the rest the next day.

Nutrient timing is generally greatly overrated

Nutrient timing refers to the times at which you eat a meal or snack, or consume calories in any form whatsoever. Over the years, several different theories have been put forward over nutrient timing, such as eating the majority of your calories and carbs before a workout, eating the majority of your calories and carbs after a workout, eating or fasting at certain times of the day, and so on. If you look long enough, you’ll find more or less any eating pattern suggested somewhere.

In reality though, most of this is minutia. Unless you’re an elite athlete, partaking in long sessions, or training multiple times every day, when you eat is much less important than what you eat and the amounts you eat.

The most important factor, regardless of your goals, is your total daily energy and macronutrient intake.

See Also: Night Eating Syndrome

Let’s use an example of a person weighing 150 pounds, who has a maintenance calorie intake of 2,000 per day. If this person had eaten 1,300 calories by 10pm and wanted a late night meal, they could eat something containing 300 to 400 calories and still end the day 300 to 400 calories below their maintenance level, meaning they’ll lose weight, despite eating late.

If they consumed the same number of calories by 4pm, they’d have exactly the same results, showing that nutrient timing isn’t important for most people and that eating before bed is absolutely fine.

When Eating Late Is Beneficial

Not only is it perfectly okay to eat late at night, it could actually be beneficial.

While going to bed on a full stomach and feeling stuffed might not be the best thing to help you drift off to sleep, going to bed hungry isn’t much fun either. Sleep is crucially important in helping your day to day function and aiding with optimal performance in the gym. If you’re missing out on sleep due to tossing and turning caused by a rumbling stomach, then having a meal before drifting off could be the best thing for you.

Additionally, if you train later in the day, going to bed without eating anything is just plain daft. While the idea of nutrient timing was discussed earlier, with the conclusion that it’s largely insignificant, having something after a training session is a good idea.

When training, muscle tissue is broken down and your glycogen stores get run down. To repair and recover, you need to ingest protein and carbohydrates to help kickstart the rebuilding process. If you hit the gym at 8pm, finish your workout at 9 or 9:30, then don’t eat anything to the following morning, you’re making your muscles go a full 10 hours without any sustenance, which could be incredibly detrimental to you gains.

In the last couple of years, a concept known as carb backloading, (introduced by nutritionist John Kiefer) has been gaining in followers and popularity. The idea of backoading is that you eat mainly protein and fats during the day, (which generally means a lower calorie intake too) then load up on carbs at night. By doing this, Kiefer (and other backloading advocates) suggest that your body is in a carb-deprived state during the day, meaning it’s primed to burn fat, then you refuel late at night with a big hit of carbs.

While no science seems to support this notion as such, eating more carbs late at night is an interesting topic. Even those who don’t recommend avoiding eating before bed often advise skipping carbs at night, for fear of fat gain. Once again though, there’s no basis in this. 

See Also: Tips For Healthy Eating While Traveling

At the end of the day, it does come down to calories in versus calories out, and what you feel most comfortable with.

The number one factor is to make sue your calorie intake is in line with your goals – that means a deficit if you want to lose fat and a surplus if you want to gain muscle. After that, whether or not you eat late at night is entirely down to personal preference.