QuoteReplyTopic: Nightime Eating - Whoa - Danger Posted: April 10 2005 at 8:26pm
I buy tons of mags every month with "good intentions" to check them out for all the hair related topics but usually I am running behind. Tonight I made myself sit down and catch up and I was reading the March Allure when I discovered this interesting article about The Dangers of Nighttime Eating. The article is actually called Eating After Dark and it is fascinating.
Not only does it point out that people who have a hard time with breaking their diets do it after dark, it also seems to be a time that triggers more binging. Also, studies have found that when you eat at night, your fat producers are more adept at packing fat on then during the day. YIPES.
There are some tips to help but I would love to hear what you all have to say.
Do you struggle with nighttime eating? How do you avoid it?
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
eKatherine
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It's also true that many people who lose control at night have starved themselves (aka "been good") all day, and are so hungry that only a superhuman amount of willpower could keep them from acting on the body's demands.
Alyssa_
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As far as putting on weight goes, I don't think it matters what time of
the day you eat... calories are calories at any hour and how many go in
vs. how many you burn is what it all boils down to.
I do agree with the binge eating part tho.. maybe its because we
usually sit down and relax at the end of the day, and its just easier
to grab more food to enjoy? I dunno. I love to munch at night, and had
a bad habit of doing it, but now I'm on medication that requires being
taken on an empty stomach in order to be effective, so I *have* to keep
my cravings under control. It isn't so hard after a week or so.
Kuroneko
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I don't know if eating calories at night is bad for you, and I'm not even sure what defines "night", anyway. . . I mean, yeah, it makes sense not to eat after six if you go to bed at ten or eleven at night, but what if you don't get to bed until four or five in the morning? So I just try not to eat after midnight. . . I call it my "Gremlin Rule" ^_^ . Unfortunately, I sometimes have a hard time sticking to that :-( . I'm trying to be more disciplined now, so I guess I'll see how it turns out.
I hear you about going to bed at 4 am. I absolutely adore staying up all nite. I think better when everyone else is sleeping & it is quiet, I get so much more accomplished. Unfortunately, I have had to learn the very hard way for me & my body, that if I don't sleep at least 6-7 hours and they aren't at night (preferably starting around 11:00 pm to midnight) my body will start to pack on pounds. Even when I am eating w/in my calorie limits and exercising. I could not figure it out until my doctor told me that my body was thinking that because I wasn't sleeping during the core night hours that my body had to "conserve" food and so everything I ate was turning to fat even if it was low fat. Shssshhh.
Whether I totally believed his explanation or not, I did find that when I started going to bed earlier like at 11:00 pm (which was very hard to do since I love to stay up) and sleeping until 6-7 am, I started to just naturally lose weight even though I didn't change what I was eating or if I was exercising.
And yes, I agree about the # of calories eaten vs those burned.
eKatherine, the Allure article specifically references the "being good all day" thought process and the "reward" theory for why people tend to binge at nite. Also because it becomes a mindless thing. You sit down to watch TV and that is when mindless munching becomes a big danger...which I definitely can see for my self. I really have to watch that and keep food away from the TV.
I also find that if I stay up on weekends until 4-5 am, my favorite times, I tend to retain water in my hands and feet and feel heavier. Yuck.
I just wish there was some sort of pill you could take that lets you stay up as late as you want, not be tempted by nite time snacking and still not have any problems with water or fat retention. :-)
That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger or drives you totally insane. :-)
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