Bedtime Eating is not That Simple
Night Time Eating And Fat Loss Revisited
Tom Venuto
Burn the Fat
"Eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince and eat dinner like
a pauper." This maxim can be attributed to nutrition writer Adelle
Davis, and since her passing in 1974, the advice to eat less at night
to help with fat loss has lived on and continued to circulate in many
different incarnations. This includes suggestions such as:
"Dont eat a lot before bedtime"
"Don't eat midnight snacks"
"Don't eat anything after 7pm
"Don't eat any carbs at night"
"Don't eat any carbs after 3 pm"and so on…
I too believe that eating lightly at night is usually very solid advice
for people seeking increased fat loss, especially for people who are
inactive at night. However, some fitness experts today, when they hear
"eat less at night", start screaming, Diet Voodoo"…
Opinions on this subject are definitely mixed. Many highly respected
experts strongly recommend eating less at night to improve fat loss,
while others suggest that it's only calories in vs calories out over 24
hours that matters.
The critics say that it's ridiculous to cut off food intake at a
certain hour or to presume that "carbs turn to fat" at night as if
there were some kind of nocturnal carbohydrate gremlins waiting to
shuttle calories into fat cells when the moon is full. They suggest
that if you eat less in the morning and eat more at night, it all
"balances itself out at the end of the day."
Of course, food does not turn to fat just because it's eaten after a
certain cutoff hour and carbs do not necessarily turn to fat at night
either (although there are hypotheses about low evening insulin
sensitivity having some significance). What we do know for certain is
that the law of energy balance is with us at all hours of the day - and
that bears some deeper consideration when you realize that we expend
the least energy when we are sleeping and many people spend the entire
evening watching TV.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing sports nutritionist and
dietician Dan Benardot, PhD for our members-only fat loss support
community at www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com, and he gave us a very
interesting perspective on this.
Dr. Benardot said that thinking in terms of 24 hour energy balance may
be a seriously flawed and outdated concept. He says that the old model
of energy balance looks at calories in versus calories out in 24 hour
units. However, what really happens is that your body allocates energy
minute by minute and hour by hour as your body's needs dictate, not at
some specified 24 hour end point.
I first heard this concept suggested by Dr. Fred Hatfield about 15
years ago. Hatfield explained how and why you should be thinking ahead
to the next three hours and adjusting your energy intake accordingly.
Although it's not really a new idea, Dr. Benardot has recently taken
this concept to a much higher level of refinement and he calls the new
paradigm, "Within Day Energy Balance."
The Within Day Energy balance approach not only backs up the practice
of eating small meals approximately every three hours, AND the practice
of "nutrient timing" (which is why post workout nutrition is such a
popular topic today, and rightly so)… it also suggests that we should
adjust our energy intake according to our activity.
Let's make the assumption most people come home from work, then plop on
the couch in front of the TV all night. Let's also assume that the
majority of people go to bed late in the evening, usually around 10 pm,
11 pm or midnight. Therefore, nightime is the period during which the
least energy is being expended.If this is true, then it's logical to
suggest that one should not eat huge amounts of calories at night,
especially right before bed because that would provide excess fuel at a
time when it is not needed. The result is increased likelihood of fat
storage.
From the within day energy balance perspective, the advice to eat less
at night makes complete sense. Of course it also suggests that if you
train at night, then you should eat more at night to support that
activity beforehand and to support recovery afterwards.
Those stuck on a 24 hour model of energy expenditure would say timing
of energy intake doesnt matter as long as the total calories for the
day are in a deficit. But who ever decided that the body operates on a
24-hour "DAY".
Try this test (or not!): Eat a 2500 calorie per day diet, with nothing
for breakfast, nothing before or after your morning workout, 500
calories for lunch, 750 calories for dinner and 1250 calories before
bedtime.
Now compare that to the SAME 2500 calorie diet with 6 small meals of
approximately 420 calories per meal and then tweak those meal sizes a
bit so that you eat a little more before and after your workout and a
little less later at night.
Both are 2500 calories per day. According to "24 hour energy balance"
thinking, both diets will produce the same results in performance,
health and body composition. But will they?
Does your body really do a calculation at midnight and add up the day's
totals like a business man when he closes out the register at night?
It's a lot more logical that energy is stored in real time and energy
is burned in real time, rather than accounted for at the end of each 24
hour period.
24 hour energy balance is just one way to academically sort calories so
you can understand it and count it in convenient units of time. This
has it's uses, as in calculating a daily calorie intake level for menu
planning purposes.
Ok, but enough about calories, what about the individual
macronutrients? Some people dont simply suggest eating fewer calories
at night, they suggest you take your calorie cut specifically from
CARBS rather than from all macronutrients evenly across the board. Is
there anything to it?
Well, there's more than one theory. The most commonly quoted theory has
to do with insulin.
The late bodybuilding guru Dan Duchaine was once asked by a competitor,
"I want to get cut up for an upcoming contest. Should I eat at night? I
heard I shouldn't eat carbs after six pm."Duchaine answered:
"It's true that insulin sensitivity is lowest at night. Let's discuss
what is happening in your body that makes it dislike carbs at night.
Cortisol, a catabolic hormone, is highest at night. When cortisol is
elevated, your muscle cell insulin sensitivity is lowered…"
More recently, David Barr wrote a tip on "lower carbs at night" for
T-Nation. He said:
"Even when bulking, you don't want to start scarfing down Pop Tarts
before you go to bed. Our muscle insulin sensitivity decreases as the
day wears on, meaning that we're more likely to generate a large
insulin response from ingesting carbs. Stated differently, we're more
predisposed to adding fat mass by eating carbs at night because our
body doesn't handle the hormone insulin as well as it does earlier in
the day."
Mind you, Barr is a not a "voodoo" guy; he is a respected scientist who
also happens to be well known as a "dogma destroyer" and "myth buster"…
and Duchaine, although he had a shady past and some run-ins with the
law, was nevertheless highly respected by nearly all in the
bodybuilding world for his ahead-of-his-time nutrition wisdom.
As a result of advice like this, word got out in the bodybuilding and
fitness community that you should eat fewer carbs at night. Real world
results and the "test of time" have suggested that this is an effective
strategy. I also don't know a single nutrition or training expert who
doesn't agree that insulin management and improvement of insulin
sensitivity aren't effective approaches in the management of body fat.
However, it's only fair to point out that not all scientists agree that
cutting carbs at night will have any real world impact on fat loss,
outside of any additional calorie deficit created by it. Dr. Benardot,
for example, doesn't think there's much to it. He says that exercisers
and athletes in particular, usually have excellent glycemic control, so
the ratio of macronutrients should not be as much of an issue as the
total energy balance in relation to energy needs at a particular time
and the meal frequency (eating every 3 hours).
Regardless of which side of the "carbs at night" debate you lean
towards, if you consider the within day energy balance principle, it
makes perfect sense not to eat large, calorie-dense meals late at night
before bedtime.
Keep in mind of course, that cutting back on your calories and or carbs
at night makes the most sense in the context of a fat loss program,
especially if fat loss has been slow. It's quite possible that I might
give the exact opposite advice to the skinny "ectomorph" who is having
a hard time gaining muscular body weight.
Also consider that this doesn't necessarily mean eating nothing at
night; it may simply mean eating smaller meals or emphasizing lean
protein and green veggies (or a small protein shake) at night.
Many programs suggest a specific time when you should eat your last
meal of the day. However, I'd suggest avoiding an absolute cut off
time, such as "no food or no carbs after 6 pm, etc," because people go
to bed at different times, and maintenance of steady blood sugar and an
optimal hormonal balance even at night are also important goals.
A more personalized suggestion is to cut off food intake 3 hours before
bedtime, if practical and possible. For example, if you eat dinner at 6
pm, but don't go to bed until 12 midnight, then a small 9 pm meal or a
snack makes sense, but keep it light, preferably lean protein, and dont
raid the refrigerator at 11:55!
An important rule to remember in all cases, is that whatever is
working, keep doing more of it. If you eat your largest meal before bed
and lose fat anyway, I would never tell you to change that. Results are
what counts. On the other hand, if you're stuck at a fat loss plateau,
this is a technique I'd suggest you give a try.
Night time eating is likely to remain a subject of debate - especially
the part about whether carbs should be targeted for removal in evening
meals.
However, perhaps even those who are skeptical can consider, that if
cutting out carbs at night is effective for fat loss, it may be for the
simple reason that it forces you to eat less automatically.
In other words, setting a rule to eat fewer calories or to eat fewer
carbs at night may be a very effective way to keep your daily calories
in check and to match intake to activity, whereas people who are
allowed to eat ad libitum at night when they're home, glued to the
couch and watching TV, etc., may tend to overeat when food is readily
available, but the energy is not needed in large amounts.
Me personally? Unless I'm weight training at night, I have always
reduced calories and carbs at night when "cutting" for bodybuilding
competition. It's worked so well for me that I devoted a whole section
to it in my program, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (BFFM) and I call the techniques "calorie tapering" and "carb tapering." For more information on how I use these methods to
help me reach single digit body fat, you can visit: Burn the Fat
Train hard and expect success.
Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Burn the Fat
Tom Venuto
Burn the Fat
"Eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince and eat dinner like
a pauper." This maxim can be attributed to nutrition writer Adelle
Davis, and since her passing in 1974, the advice to eat less at night
to help with fat loss has lived on and continued to circulate in many
different incarnations. This includes suggestions such as:
"Dont eat a lot before bedtime"
"Don't eat midnight snacks"
"Don't eat anything after 7pm
"Don't eat any carbs at night"
"Don't eat any carbs after 3 pm"and so on…
I too believe that eating lightly at night is usually very solid advice
for people seeking increased fat loss, especially for people who are
inactive at night. However, some fitness experts today, when they hear
"eat less at night", start screaming, Diet Voodoo"…
Opinions on this subject are definitely mixed. Many highly respected
experts strongly recommend eating less at night to improve fat loss,
while others suggest that it's only calories in vs calories out over 24
hours that matters.
The critics say that it's ridiculous to cut off food intake at a
certain hour or to presume that "carbs turn to fat" at night as if
there were some kind of nocturnal carbohydrate gremlins waiting to
shuttle calories into fat cells when the moon is full. They suggest
that if you eat less in the morning and eat more at night, it all
"balances itself out at the end of the day."
Of course, food does not turn to fat just because it's eaten after a
certain cutoff hour and carbs do not necessarily turn to fat at night
either (although there are hypotheses about low evening insulin
sensitivity having some significance). What we do know for certain is
that the law of energy balance is with us at all hours of the day - and
that bears some deeper consideration when you realize that we expend
the least energy when we are sleeping and many people spend the entire
evening watching TV.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing sports nutritionist and
dietician Dan Benardot, PhD for our members-only fat loss support
community at www.BurnTheFatInnerCircle.com, and he gave us a very
interesting perspective on this.
Dr. Benardot said that thinking in terms of 24 hour energy balance may
be a seriously flawed and outdated concept. He says that the old model
of energy balance looks at calories in versus calories out in 24 hour
units. However, what really happens is that your body allocates energy
minute by minute and hour by hour as your body's needs dictate, not at
some specified 24 hour end point.
I first heard this concept suggested by Dr. Fred Hatfield about 15
years ago. Hatfield explained how and why you should be thinking ahead
to the next three hours and adjusting your energy intake accordingly.
Although it's not really a new idea, Dr. Benardot has recently taken
this concept to a much higher level of refinement and he calls the new
paradigm, "Within Day Energy Balance."
The Within Day Energy balance approach not only backs up the practice
of eating small meals approximately every three hours, AND the practice
of "nutrient timing" (which is why post workout nutrition is such a
popular topic today, and rightly so)… it also suggests that we should
adjust our energy intake according to our activity.
Let's make the assumption most people come home from work, then plop on
the couch in front of the TV all night. Let's also assume that the
majority of people go to bed late in the evening, usually around 10 pm,
11 pm or midnight. Therefore, nightime is the period during which the
least energy is being expended.If this is true, then it's logical to
suggest that one should not eat huge amounts of calories at night,
especially right before bed because that would provide excess fuel at a
time when it is not needed. The result is increased likelihood of fat
storage.
From the within day energy balance perspective, the advice to eat less
at night makes complete sense. Of course it also suggests that if you
train at night, then you should eat more at night to support that
activity beforehand and to support recovery afterwards.
Those stuck on a 24 hour model of energy expenditure would say timing
of energy intake doesnt matter as long as the total calories for the
day are in a deficit. But who ever decided that the body operates on a
24-hour "DAY".
Try this test (or not!): Eat a 2500 calorie per day diet, with nothing
for breakfast, nothing before or after your morning workout, 500
calories for lunch, 750 calories for dinner and 1250 calories before
bedtime.
Now compare that to the SAME 2500 calorie diet with 6 small meals of
approximately 420 calories per meal and then tweak those meal sizes a
bit so that you eat a little more before and after your workout and a
little less later at night.
Both are 2500 calories per day. According to "24 hour energy balance"
thinking, both diets will produce the same results in performance,
health and body composition. But will they?
Does your body really do a calculation at midnight and add up the day's
totals like a business man when he closes out the register at night?
It's a lot more logical that energy is stored in real time and energy
is burned in real time, rather than accounted for at the end of each 24
hour period.
24 hour energy balance is just one way to academically sort calories so
you can understand it and count it in convenient units of time. This
has it's uses, as in calculating a daily calorie intake level for menu
planning purposes.
Ok, but enough about calories, what about the individual
macronutrients? Some people dont simply suggest eating fewer calories
at night, they suggest you take your calorie cut specifically from
CARBS rather than from all macronutrients evenly across the board. Is
there anything to it?
Well, there's more than one theory. The most commonly quoted theory has
to do with insulin.
The late bodybuilding guru Dan Duchaine was once asked by a competitor,
"I want to get cut up for an upcoming contest. Should I eat at night? I
heard I shouldn't eat carbs after six pm."Duchaine answered:
"It's true that insulin sensitivity is lowest at night. Let's discuss
what is happening in your body that makes it dislike carbs at night.
Cortisol, a catabolic hormone, is highest at night. When cortisol is
elevated, your muscle cell insulin sensitivity is lowered…"
More recently, David Barr wrote a tip on "lower carbs at night" for
T-Nation. He said:
"Even when bulking, you don't want to start scarfing down Pop Tarts
before you go to bed. Our muscle insulin sensitivity decreases as the
day wears on, meaning that we're more likely to generate a large
insulin response from ingesting carbs. Stated differently, we're more
predisposed to adding fat mass by eating carbs at night because our
body doesn't handle the hormone insulin as well as it does earlier in
the day."
Mind you, Barr is a not a "voodoo" guy; he is a respected scientist who
also happens to be well known as a "dogma destroyer" and "myth buster"…
and Duchaine, although he had a shady past and some run-ins with the
law, was nevertheless highly respected by nearly all in the
bodybuilding world for his ahead-of-his-time nutrition wisdom.
As a result of advice like this, word got out in the bodybuilding and
fitness community that you should eat fewer carbs at night. Real world
results and the "test of time" have suggested that this is an effective
strategy. I also don't know a single nutrition or training expert who
doesn't agree that insulin management and improvement of insulin
sensitivity aren't effective approaches in the management of body fat.
However, it's only fair to point out that not all scientists agree that
cutting carbs at night will have any real world impact on fat loss,
outside of any additional calorie deficit created by it. Dr. Benardot,
for example, doesn't think there's much to it. He says that exercisers
and athletes in particular, usually have excellent glycemic control, so
the ratio of macronutrients should not be as much of an issue as the
total energy balance in relation to energy needs at a particular time
and the meal frequency (eating every 3 hours).
Regardless of which side of the "carbs at night" debate you lean
towards, if you consider the within day energy balance principle, it
makes perfect sense not to eat large, calorie-dense meals late at night
before bedtime.
Keep in mind of course, that cutting back on your calories and or carbs
at night makes the most sense in the context of a fat loss program,
especially if fat loss has been slow. It's quite possible that I might
give the exact opposite advice to the skinny "ectomorph" who is having
a hard time gaining muscular body weight.
Also consider that this doesn't necessarily mean eating nothing at
night; it may simply mean eating smaller meals or emphasizing lean
protein and green veggies (or a small protein shake) at night.
Many programs suggest a specific time when you should eat your last
meal of the day. However, I'd suggest avoiding an absolute cut off
time, such as "no food or no carbs after 6 pm, etc," because people go
to bed at different times, and maintenance of steady blood sugar and an
optimal hormonal balance even at night are also important goals.
A more personalized suggestion is to cut off food intake 3 hours before
bedtime, if practical and possible. For example, if you eat dinner at 6
pm, but don't go to bed until 12 midnight, then a small 9 pm meal or a
snack makes sense, but keep it light, preferably lean protein, and dont
raid the refrigerator at 11:55!
An important rule to remember in all cases, is that whatever is
working, keep doing more of it. If you eat your largest meal before bed
and lose fat anyway, I would never tell you to change that. Results are
what counts. On the other hand, if you're stuck at a fat loss plateau,
this is a technique I'd suggest you give a try.
Night time eating is likely to remain a subject of debate - especially
the part about whether carbs should be targeted for removal in evening
meals.
However, perhaps even those who are skeptical can consider, that if
cutting out carbs at night is effective for fat loss, it may be for the
simple reason that it forces you to eat less automatically.
In other words, setting a rule to eat fewer calories or to eat fewer
carbs at night may be a very effective way to keep your daily calories
in check and to match intake to activity, whereas people who are
allowed to eat ad libitum at night when they're home, glued to the
couch and watching TV, etc., may tend to overeat when food is readily
available, but the energy is not needed in large amounts.
Me personally? Unless I'm weight training at night, I have always
reduced calories and carbs at night when "cutting" for bodybuilding
competition. It's worked so well for me that I devoted a whole section
to it in my program, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle (BFFM) and I call the techniques "calorie tapering" and "carb tapering." For more information on how I use these methods to
help me reach single digit body fat, you can visit: Burn the Fat
Train hard and expect success.
Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Burn the Fat
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