Ever heard this line before? Chances are you’ve heard it over and over and believed in it.
Imagine this scenario: You come home late from a very busy day at work and you haven’t had a decent meal throughout the day. You are so hungry but you curb your urge to eat a huge meal late at night because you have always believed that eating at night will make you gain more weight.
If there is one thing that weight watchers fear the most, it is seeing the figures on the scale go up, but not eating especially after six o’clock at night or any other certain time for fear of gaining more weight is a myth, according to Gold’s Gym Saipan personal training director/assistant manager Brett Nelson.
“It is a myth that eating after a certain time causes someone to gain weight. Only eating more calories than you burn will cause someone weight gain,” Nelson said.
Weight gain is a result of eating more calories than you burn on a regular basis, not when you eat, he added.
“Due to their preference or schedule, many people eat later in the evening, before bed or even wake up in the middle of the night to take in calories. If one gains weight doing this, it is due to excess calorie intake, not the timing,” Nelson said.
He said the body does not have an enzyme with a watch that after 7 p.m. preferentially stores items, especially carbohydrates, as fat.
“We all have a certain number of calories that we can consume without gaining weight. As long as we don’t exceed that number, weight gain will not occur,” Nelson said.
Here is an example:
At your height, weight and activity level, you know that you burn 2,750 calories in a 24-hour period. You’ve had a busy day and since your 350-calorie breakfast, you have not had the opportunity to eat. You get home late after a long day and you are starving. At 9 p.m. you eat an enormous 1,000-calorie meal. Added to the 350-calorie breakfast this brings your total calories consumed for the day to 1,350 calories. After your late meal you are exhausted and promptly go to bed.
The question is, will you gain weight from that huge meal?
Nelson said the answer is NO.
“You’ve burned 1,400 calories more than you consumed. So, the moral here is to figure out how many calories you can have during the day to lose or maintain weight and distribute those calories/foods in a manner that makes you feel your best and prevents hunger,” he added.
According to an article published on KidsHealth.org, one of the most visited websites for children’s health and development, food that you eat at any time of the day, whether 10 a.m. or 6 p.m., will have the same calories.
Reviewed by Dr. Mary L. Gavin from the Division of General Pediatrics in Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, the article which answers the question if eating late at night causes weight gain states that night time eating tends to be snacking rather than sitting down for regular meals.
This means that people tend to gorge on lots of snack foods that are low on nutrition but high in calories. These snacks such as chips are usually convenient for you to munch on as you sit in front of the TV so that before you know it, you have finished the whole bag without being aware of it.
The article says there is nothing wrong with sitting down to a normal dinner even if it is already late at night, provided that you do not go over your daily calorie limit.
