What happens if I eat before bed?
What happens if I eat before bed?
Night time nutrition is actually super benefitial to the repair and maintenance of your damaged muscle tissue (and especially if you’re consistantly rallying intense workouts – I see you gym junkies fist pumping out there!) Reminder – this only works if you’re choosing the right foods. You can, by no means, justify eating an entire pizza in bed thinking you’ll wake up a total beef cake. Maybe just a cake. Eating the bad stuff pre z’s will only lead to an increase in your body fat percentage. Although your energy needs decrease while you sleep, they don’t go down to zero… so don’t keep everyone around you awake because your tummy is crying out for something, anything! Not to mention, you’re about to go into fasting for 6-8 hours (or 10, 12… wild night?) and there’s no other time of the day you will go this long without eating. So, what’s a little snacky snack before sleep?
- Scrambled or hard boiled egg whites (at least 3)
- Grilled Chicken breast or Turkey
- Protein Shake
Avoid carbohydrates and fatty food. Fast digesting foods will include things like white bread, fruit juices, sodas, cookies, donuts, pies, cakes, candy, chips…
This is how people pack on the pounds eating at night.
z”Those who argue against eating close to bedtime claim that most calories taken in at night will lead to unwanted weight gain in the form of body fat. Remember that unwanted weight gain happens because of eating too much throughout day. Weight balance is controlled by the relationship between how many calories you burn and how many calories you eat. It has little to do with when you eat your calories.”
In conclusion, eating the proper foods before bed isn’t going to make you fat. It’s the calorie surplus throughout the day (and probably the tub of ice cream you keep reaching for) that’ll lead to unwanted weight gain. Remember, what you ate at 10pm will have the same amount of fat and calories at 10am.