There are a lot of myths out there about eating at night, how it makes you fat, how it disrupts sleep, or how it helps you sleep. It’s hard to know how to separate fact from fiction.
According to the experts, the first thing you need to know is that gaining weight is about the math – calories you consume vs. calories you expend through activity. It all comes down to the total calories you eat in a day, not when you eat. Eating after a particular hour does not cause the food to be stored differently – the food you eat at night is not more likely to be stored as fat.
However, the timing of your meal could trigger a domino effect that indirectly leads to weight gain. Here’s where the sleep disruption aspect comes in. Research suggests that eating too close to your sleep (approximately three to four hours before) can lead to more disrupted sleep or cause heartburn or acid reflux symptoms. When you experience poor sleep, it affects the hormones (leptin and ghrelin) that affect hunger and cravings.
In fact, in a recent study, 16 overweight adults lived in a lab for a week. Everything was measured, and everyone ate the same amount of food. But one group ate immediately when they woke up, lunch around noon, and then an early dinner. The other group pushed everything back four hours, meaning all meals happened later in the day.
Those who ate later in the morning and night felt hungrier throughout the day, had lower levels of the hormone that makes you feel full (leptin), and had higher levels of the hormone that makes you feel hungry (ghrelin). Neither group lost more weight because they controlled how much everyone ate, but — in a non-lab setting — you can see what might happen. The combination of less fullness and more hunger could cause you to overeat frequently.
What it boils down to, is that you’re more likely to feel hungry and crave foods that are loaded with fat, sugar, and calories when you get poor-quality sleep. So if you struggle with hunger, a great place to start is prioritizing better sleep and trying to cut off any food about two to three hours before you hit the hay.
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