The ideal time to eat dinner appears to align with your circadian rhythm and allow your body time to adequately digest food before laying down for sleep. This typically means eating dinner at least 2 to 3 hours before bedtime. It may be especially helpful for people who want to: lose weight.
Ideally, your final meal of the day would be a minimum of three to four hours before you go to bed. Studies have found that having a late dinner or eating too late at night has links to an increased risk of obesity and metabolic disruptions like dyslipidemia and hyperglycemia.
Experts say that having a late-night meal keeps the body on 'high alert' at a time where it should be winding down, which can have dangerous implications for our health. Researchers have now said that we should never eat within two hours of our bedtime, and ideally, nothing after 7pm.
There's no set time you should stop eating before bed, but as a guide, you should aim to have your last meal two to three hours before going to sleep. Avoid late-night meals, late-night snacking, and nighttime eating as much as possible.
Besides the extra calories, eating too close to bedtime can have other health implications such as digestive issues. When sleeping, our digestion naturally slows down as our metabolism enters a resting state. Lying down in bed immediately after eating can lead to symptoms such as indigestion, acid reflux and heartburn.
Weight gain
Going to sleep directly after you eat means your body doesn't get a chance to burn off those calories. In fact, eating a big meal and then hitting the couch can be just as harmful. Eating an early dinner allows your body time to burn off extra calories before you go to sleep.
Your body will not store more fat after eating the same meal at 9:00 pm as opposed to 6:00 pm—the calorie intake is the same. If you overeat, your body will store the extra calories as fat no matter what time you consume them.
Based on research that shows eating two meals won't necessarily get you all the nutrients you need, though, I do recommend choosing three medium-size meals between 400 and 600 calories, plus one to three snacks at 150 to 200 calories per day for optimal nutrition and satiety.
Myth: You Shouldn't Eat After 7 P.M.
“However, there's no magic to the 7 p.m. time,” Dobbins says. “Losing weight is a matter of limiting our calorie intake, and most people tend to eat most of their calories in the evening, at dinner and snacking afterward.
The goal is to eat every 3 to 4 hours in order to keep your blood sugar consistent and for your stomach to optimally digest. Setting this schedule consistently across days can also help curb overeating which can lead to bloating or indigestion.
Having a decent overnight fast may be a great place to start to give your gut bacteria a helping hand. Having a 10-12-hour overnight period, say 7pm-7am where no food is consumed, is a very traditional way of eating.
It can help with weight loss
Fasting one or two days a week may be a way for you to consume fewer calories over time. You may find this easier to do than cutting back a certain number of calories every day. The energy restriction from a 24-hour fast may also benefit your metabolism, helping in weight loss.
Studies tend to show that when food is consumed late at night — anywhere from after dinner to outside a person's typical sleep/wake cycle — the body is more likely to store those calories as fat and gain weight rather than burn it as energy, says Kelly Allison of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's ...
If you still want a specific time to stop eating before bed to lose weight, try having your last meal before ten o'clock. Any snack or meal you had after ten o'clock, could delay the body's ability to break down unused macronutrients.
Timing our meals this way may lead to better body weight, hormone regulation, blood sugar and cholesterol levels, sleep patterns and other metabolic improvements. The evidence indicates that our bodies do best when we eat more in the morning than at night, a pattern that's vastly different from how most Americans eat.
If fat loss is the most important thing for you, then I would probably stick with the 1pm meal. The primary benefits of fasting come around 12 to 16 hours after your last meal.
It's best to stop eating about three hours before going to bed. That allows plenty of time for your body to digest the last food you ate so it won't disrupt your sleep, but leaves a small enough window before sleep that you won't go to bed feeling hungry.
The bottom line
The ideal time to eat dinner appears to align with your circadian rhythm and allow your body time to adequately digest food before laying down for sleep. This typically means eating dinner at least 2 to 3 hours before bedtime.
Eating one meal a day can increase your blood pressure and cholesterol. This occurred in a group of healthy adults who switched to one meal a day to participate in a study. If you already have concerns in either area, eating just once a day might not be safe. Eating one meal late can cause your blood sugar to spike.
Eating one meal a day may be a popular way to lose weight, but it's likely not a good idea for overall health. Although fasting in general — including prolonged fasting — may benefit health in a number of ways, people can reach the same health benefits using much more sustainable methods.
Yes, this will restrict your calorie intake, and eating fewer calories can help with weight loss. But there's so much more that happens to your body when you only eat once a day, and most of it is negative. Plus, restricting your body to only one meal will actually make weight loss even harder.
There are many reasons you can gain weight that have nothing to do with food. Sometimes weight gain is easy to figure out. If you've changed your eating habits, added more dessert or processed foods, or have been spending more time on the couch than usual, you can typically blame those reasons if you gain a few pounds.
Then, between the hours of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., our digestive functions get stronger and metabolism reaches its peak. Like nature, when the sun is highest in the sky, our body temperature is at its highest point of the day. This is when your body digests foods and burns fuel most efficiently.
It simply takes time. Another common reason why people report not losing weight despite reducing their calories is that they don't give it enough time. Our bodies will do their utmost to hold on to our fat reserves and you often have to be in a calorie deficit for a while before you will see any meaningful weight loss.