Does the Timing of Your Last Meal Really Affect Weight Loss?
There appear to be mixed opinions with regards to whether or not eating at night influences weight loss (or gain). Numerous weight loss experts now believe that since our bodies metabolize food in exactly the same way whether we eat at sunrise or at midnight, the timing of our eating does not affect our weight. People who eat their last meal late at night are not any heavier than those who normally have an early supper. According to this point of view, during the day the human body’s “inner clock” is controlled by the Systemic Nervous System (SNS), which puts us in a ‘fight or flight’ state of high alert, whereas at night the “Parasystemic Nervous System” (PSNS) takes over. Since this part of the Autonomic Nervous System (PSNS) is responsible for enhancing digestion and the absorption of nutrients, the human body may even digest and use up nutrients better at night than during the day.
Studies on how the timing of meals affects weight gain (or weight loss) indicate that people who eat more calories in the evening do not gain more weight than people whose calorie intake is higher during the day; the human body turns unused calories into fat, regardless of whether you eat these in the morning or before going to bed at night. According to this viewpoint, the only thing that will affect weight loss or weight gain is WHAT you eat, not WHEN you eat it i.e. how many calories you’ve consumed vs. how many calories you’ve burned throughout the day.
In addition,proponents of this viewpoint poit out that a common side effect of not eating evening meals after a certain hour is late night bingeing. Another factor that can lead to bingeing is eating carbohydrate-rich foods in the daytime, which will increase your hunger at night.
Nevertheless, many nutrition experts continue to maintain that eating less at night improves fat loss. This viewpoint is based on two principal facts: the human body does not calculate total calorie intake every 24 hours and then evenly metabolize total calories consumption for the day. While nutrients are metabolized in exactly the same way whether it is night or day, energy (from food) is allocated on an ongoing basis, according to the body’s needs (physical activity). That’s why the timing of food intake matters. People expend much less energy at night, meaning that any additional, unused calories are more likely to be stored as fat.
Some nutrition experts also maintain that muscle insulin sensitivity decreases at the end of the day, so the body is prone to generate more insulin in response to carbohydrates consumed at night than earlier in the day. Since insulin isn’t processed as effectively at night, eating carbohydrate-rich foods in the evening enhances the creation of fat to a greater degree than if you would eat the same foods during the day. Whether or not carbohydrates affect our bodies differently in the evening than they do in the daytime is a subject of debate among scientists, however. After all, reducing your carbohydrate intake at night could promote weight loss simply because it also means reducing your calorie intake.
In general, nutrition experts agree that you can’t go wrong if you spread your calorie intake evenly throughout the day. Eating balanced meals at regular intervals is the best way to control hunger and maintain even blood sugar levels. Nutritionists also agree that late-night bingeing after your last meal of the day (regardless of when you eat it and what it’s composed of) is a sure-fire way to gain weight.
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