Exposing the medical myth: "Don't eat before bed"
Categories: Nutrition & Supplements
I remember from when I was very young, my parents told me it was unhealthy to eat before bed. They only used it as an excuse to keep me from asking for last-minute helpings of ice cream, but when I got older, I believed in the idea, because the logic seems to make sense. In short, the theory is that your body won't use your late-night snack as fuel because you'll be sleeping -- thus converting it to fat, which would result in weight gain.
Apparently, this is a myth -- our bodies process food in the same way whether we're asleep or awake.
While one doctor notes the possibility of some correlation between late-night eating and weight gain, this is most-likely because it's more difficult to control portions at night than it is during the day, or it's due to the fact that a midnight snack is probably full of calories that you body didn't need in the first place.
So if you're watching your weight, make sure to keep an eye on your calorie intake, and get plenty of exercise -- but don't watch the clock. You can eat whenever you want.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
NeatChi 6-27-2007 @ 5:35PM
I eat every night right before bed, either a casien protien shake, or about a half cup of skim cottage cheese. The slow digesting protein helps prevent my body from scavaging muscle tissue while I sleep. I think that eating carbs before bed is bad, just because you don't need a whole lot to activate your krebs cycle and most of the carbs you eat will just be shunted into glycogen or fat.
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John M 6-27-2007 @ 6:16PM
"The slow digesting protein helps prevent my body from scavaging muscle tissue while I sleep."
Unless you are seriously malnourished, what you just wrote is nonsense. Muscle is only digested as a last resort in severe malnutrition.
"I think that eating carbs before bed is bad"
And I think that this is more nonsense.
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sagessales 8-16-2007 @ 8:18PM
If I'm hungry at night, I eat. Never had a problem with it.
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