eating at night - good or bad for weight loss?

[rico]

I had heard that eating within a few hours of going to sleep was bad if you're trying to lose weight. But I see several threads here stating the importance of eating protein before bed. My main goal right now is to lose weight, but I'd like to gain muscle too. Should I eat at night?


Thanks.

[trHawT]

If I eat anything at night, it would definitely be a cup of (slow-digesting) cottage cheese.

[CliffStamp]

When bulking, you try to have a constant supply of materials to your body so whenever it has the ability to be anabolic the fuel is there for it to do so. Thus you eat a lot, including before you go to bed. Some will even recommend waking up if you sleep for more than 4-6 hours and eating again. However if you are on a diet you don't eat as if you were bulking. No you don't eat before you go to bed if at all possible.

-Cliff

[Firehawk]

I look at it this way:

Your body is doing most of its repairing while you are sleeping. You NEED nutrients in your body at this time. Starving your body out for 4 hours before bed is not ideal, i dont care if you are going for fat loss as a primary goal or not.

However, when you go to sleep, your metabolism does slow down, so carb intake and overall calorie intake should be adjusted on the final meal taking this into consideration.

[CliffStamp]

Originally Posted by Firehawk

You NEED nutrients in your body at this time.

Yes and that is why it stored the body fat. If you supply it with enough fuel from digestion, it of course will preserve the fat until you stop doing so.

-Cliff

[Firehawk]

LOL, well , i am careful, but ill eat about 1 hour before i go to bed, and ive been losing fat just fine off my body. Again, the amount of intake in the final meal is crucial. I dont see how starving your body before you go to bed is GOOD for your body.


How is it gonna be stored as fat when you are using those nutrients for repairing? IT WONT BE!

Ive been losing 3 lbs of fat a week, doing just this. I eat maybe 1 hour before i go to bed.

[CliffStamp]

Originally Posted by Firehawk

I dont see how starving your body before you go to bed is GOOD for your body.

You have to starve your body sometime if you want to lose weight, starve meaning simply a reducion in calories from what is needed for maintenance. This can be healthy if you are too fat, unhealthy if you are underweight. At all times you strives for optimal essential nutrient intake of course (your body won't deplete this over night, even the very short term ones last days before you deplete them).

How is it gonna be stored as fat when you are using those nutrients for repairing? IT WONT BE!

Yes but that is a circular arguement. You start off assuming what you conclude. Yes, your body burns energy when you sleep. If you don't eat it will get this from fat. If you do eat you will get it from your food.

This of course applied to when you are not sleeping as well. Yes you recover somewhat when you sleep - however sleep is mainly catabolic, diurnal cycling happens when you sleep, not when you are awake.

Your BMR also goes down when you sleep (the more you are obese the lower it gets), and thus you need less food when sleeping than if you awake just lying on the couch.

Essentially you are arguing that if you were a typical couch potato you would be better off eating because you would not want to starve yourself while you are recovering while lying down watching tv.

It doesn't sound so good in that light however.

Can you lose weight while eating at night, sure, you canlose weight while doing anything depending on how you do it. I know a person who lose weight and ate nothing but burgers and french fries, and another who ate nothing but fried chicken and taters. These are not in general optimal ways or losing weight - and would tend to be problematic for most people.

Of course if you find a way that works fo you, and you are getting healthier, then that is all that matters to you.

-Cliff

[Sull]

Originally Posted by trHawT

If I eat anything at night, it would definitely be a cup of (slow-digesting) cottage cheese.

Same here, even when cutting. My thinking here is that the casein in cottage cheese helps prevent catabolism during sleep. Which will help retain the muscle you have, and in the long run, more muscle will equal less fat on your body. If I'm wrong here, somebody correct me.

Other than that, I don't eat before bed.

[kronik]

Originally Posted by CliffStamp

Essentially you are arguing that if you were a typical couch potato you would be better off eating because you would not want to starve yourself while you are recovering while lying down watching tv.

-Cliff

Haha : We need a laughing smiley.

[Firehawk]

Thats not at all what Im saying. If you were a couch potato, what does your body have to repair? Nothin most likely.

If you are in a groove, just worked out that day (WEIGHTLIFTED), and your body is doing alot of repairing to your muscles while sleeping, why not take in some high quality protein and a few carbs to better repair those muscles and make them stronger? This is well worth it.

The point though however is, you need to be cautious on taht last meal because what your body doesnt use will yes, turn to fat. Thats why I said the carb intake and calories should be carefully selected.

[CliffStamp]

A pound of muscle contains about 100 grams of protein, how much muscle do you think you can grow over night, consider as well that the main anabolic cycle in responce to working out happens about 6 hours after a workout and continues for 24-36 hours and that it would be extreme to grow a pound of muscle (so 100 grams of protein) in a week.

[100 grams in a week, so 14 in a day, so about half a gram an hour, so 3-4 grams at night -> for maximal growth rates of a full pound of muscle a week]

Yes you are catabolic at night, this is essential for growth because it includes such functions as the removal of damaged proteins in the muscle which are then recycled and used to build new ones along with the labile proteins in the liver and free AA's in the blood. If these proteins are not catabolized they will never be rebuilt.

[If you don't sleep at all you can prevent the catabolism to a great extent - this will delay the onset of muscle soreness and the accompaning loss in strength - of course this isn't a sensible thing to do for muscle gains, but it follows the same line of reasoning]

If you grow really fast, which is usually only the case for severe drug use, then you may want to eat at night, even waking up to eat to get maximum growth, because your anabolic drive is so strong you are using up all the free AA's. But for most people, especially on a diet this is not going to happen because your body will not be highly anabolic (especially for contractile proteins) for any time, awake or at rest.

Exceptions to this would be genetically freaky people like Steve Reeves, or anyone which is at the prime growing age (babies, or young teens), or someone who was really inactive, and suddenly became very active.

If you do want to eat at night then the best things to eat would be :

1) slow digesting proteins
2) highly ketogenic fats

The worst things to eat would be :

1) fructose, followed by any high GI carbs
2) very long long chain fats
3) hydrolyzed proteins of any kind, quick digesting proteins in general like whey

Note as well that your body is way smarter than most people give it credit for. If for example you eat a little less protein at night and your body actually burns everything you have your protein sensitivity goes up dramatically and when you feed it protein in the morning the anabolic drive is much stronger and protein utilization is very high. If you glut it full of protein constantly, protein utilization drops off significantly.

-Cliff

[Maxgain]

You will only gain weight by eating at night if this puts you in a calorie surplus.
If you have controlled your calories and remain in a defecit you will lose weight.
Therefore whether you eat or not at night is not going to affect overall weight loss.
In terms of a muscle building sense i would recommend a caesin protein source intake.

[CliffStamp]

Originally Posted by Maxgain

You will only gain weight by eating at night if this puts you in a calorie surplus.

And since your MR at night is very low, this doesn't take much food, especially if it is quick digesting. You can't simply look at your BMR and eat like it was constant throughout the day, as it isn't even close to that.

You have to look at this from a time dependent point of view, not simply a gross daily viewpoint. This is trivial to see if you compare what happens if you eat 1500 calories (or whatever your BMR requires) at once, vs spacing them out during the day.

Your viewpoint would argue that no difference would be made because after all its the same amount of calories being eaten in both cases and you could even eat them all and go right to sleep with the same effects, even if they were all carbs vs all fats vs all protein as long as it was all 1500 calories.

Specifically for max advantage on an isocaloric diet if you eat the most when your MR is at its highest and the least when it is the lowest. If you do this in reverse you will tend to store fat and burn lean body mass at the same time.

-Cliff

[Firehawk]

lol this is the first time I think i completely agree with Cliff...

The only other thing I could think of that MaxGain would be thinking, is that if you for instance, starved your body all day and ate nothing, then in the last meal you ate 2000 calories, that you probably burnt enough fat through the day so even if your BMR was 2400, you would end up with a net loss of 400 after the 2000 went onto your body as fat.

This is not true either because look at people that eat very badly. People that eat 1 or 2 meals a day almost never lose weight. I hear it all the time, especially from women around me. "Well I eat once a day and I only eat about 600 calories...". Well if that were true, then they would be droppin weight faster than the Red Wings just dropped out of the NHL Playoffs (sigh).

So I agree with Cliff, spreading meals out throughout the day is very necessary, and eating 1 big meal during the day will certainly not be the same thing as eating the same amount of calories over 6 meals a day...

[Maxgain]

You will lose about 600cals at night by sleeping alone. Therefore food that you consume will be used up. If you then fast yourself for 10 hours you are setting yourself up for muscle breakdown and fzat storage upon eating.

While 1 or two meals a day is going to affect you weight pattern the metabolic differences between eating 3 or six times a day are nil on an iso-calorie diet. A frequent intake of food will not affect your metabolism beyond 3 square meals.
As long as adequate protein and efas were taken in what comprises the rest of your diet will have minimal effects on metabolism rate and as long as you are in a calorie defecit you will lose weight