Late Night Eating Syndrome

by Timothy
(Los Angeles)

You probably heard that you shouldn't eat at night. But if a caloric deficit is what's essentially necessary to lose fat, why does timing
matter? For many people, eating late at night (within 3 hours of going to sleep) is counterproductive to fat loss due to the fact that their activity level decreases in the evening comes. Consuming calories at that time means their body won't have time to burn those calories.

What happens is the calories will be stored as fat.

Your metabolism slows down through the course of the day. Your metabolism is highest in the morning and lowest in the evening.
If you eat late at night then you should also work out late at night.

I used to work out regularly between 9 and 11 p.m. and even though I was training for fat loss I would still eat something after wards to ensure optimal recovery from the training sessions.

To sum up: It's all about activity level, if you're training late at night then you are using those calories that you take in. If not, then they are just sitting there.