Hi,

I have a quick question. How many hours before bed should my last meal be? During the week I generally eat at around 7.30 or 8 (depending on the time I get in from the gym) and go to bed at around 10. Is this ok?

My eating plan currently states that my evening meal should be around 250 calories - so I either eat a Lean Cuisine or WW meal which is around 250 calories or I have dinner comprising 3 oz chicken, 1/2 cup rice with some veggies.

There's no set rule - the whole "if you eat before bed, it will turn into fat" thing is a myth. Your metabolism works 24 hours a day. If you eat before bed, you may weigh more in the morning, in theory, because the mass of the food is in you, but time of day has nothing to do with the rate your body metabolizes things.

I agree with stellarose. I think that whole thing started because people who eat before right bed usually haven't eaten all day and tend to overeat, or they're late night snacking after they've eaten all their calories.

I think there was a study done (I forget where and when, it was a while ago but this particular one stands out) that concluded that people who ate 2000 calories spread throughout the day had no relevant change in weight when compared to people who ate all of their 2000 allotted calories in one meal at the end of the day...because both groups only ate 2000 calories.

It doesn't matter when you eat, just be mindful you aren't overeating because you ate late and are starving.

Also, growth hormone (the anabolic, muscle building hormone - ie: weight loss friendly hormone) is secreted in its highest levels when we sleep or around 2-3am (and after a strength training workout). Insulin and growth hormone are antagonistic hormones (bind to the same receptor), so if you eat late at night and then sleep the insulin secreted from your meal can interfere with the growth hormone.

Basically, try to avoid your carbs as much as possible if you're eating later/right before bed at night to keep your insulin levels down so you can reap all the benefits of growth hormone.

I second rockstar's biology lesson. From what I've read, this seems to be the only reason (but a good one nonetheless) to avoid eating right before bed. I think some of this reasoning is cultural too- it's just "normal" to us to eat earlier. When I lived in Kenya, it was the norm to eat a HUGE meal right before bed, at around 10 pm. They had a whole line of reasoning about it helping you sleep. I had all these Kenyan aunties trying to force feed me huge plates of uglai and meat late at night and there, it's rude not to eat! I'd try to explain that I wasn't used to eating huge portions of food or eating at that time of night (or eating ugali and sketchy meat), but all I would hear was "In Kenya we eat." Anyway, I eventually had to adapt, but it didn't prevent me from losing weight.

Thanks a lot guys...this is helpful information.

I just want to add, eating 2 hours before bed is totally reasonable. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Maybe eat lower carb and have less of them, but it's not the end of the world if you can't/don't.

The only thing i find about eating right before i go to bed is that its hard to sleep on my stomch when im full I dont think it'll make a huge difference to your weight loss though