Why late night snacking is a bad idea.
For decades, we've been warned that eating late at night can lead to weight gain, with the most common explanation being that our willpower tends to be lower, and we're more likely to consume high-calorie junk food in the early hours of the morning. But scientists have now discovered that late-night snacking can increase our risk of obesity even when we avoid junk food, and worse, eating before bed can lead to a myriad of harmful health effects.
In 2009, a study conducted on rats at Northwestern University found that eating late at night can lead to significant weight gain, regardless of whether the person is counting calories and avoiding junk food. "How or why a person gains weight is very complicated, but it's clearly not just calorie intake and calorie expenditure," said Fred Trek, professor of neurobiology and physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Circadian control. Better meal timing, which would require behavioral change, could be a critical element in slowing the ever-increasing incidence of obesity.
Junk food at night.
Studies like this have led scientists to conclude that our body's internal clock, the one that regulates our sleep-wake cycle, also regulates how our body burns calories, and if we eat when we should be sleeping, our body will burn less of what we consume. The exact reason why our metabolism is less active at night is not known, but scientists speculate that the genes that control our metabolism are more "on" during the day and are therefore able to process energy more efficiently.
Recently, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies conducted another study involving rats and meal times and found that rats that only had access to food on a regular eight-hour schedule weighed 28 percent less than rats that had access to food continuously. In addition to the increased risk of obesity, researchers have also found that nonstop eating contributes to high blood sugar, increased inflammation, increased cholesterol, liver damage, and motor control problems. "What we have shown is that with daily fasting, the body can fight junk food to a large extent,". However, cautions that this finding is not a license to ditch calorie counting and go on a junk food spree during the day, stating that "there are definitely limits."
Counting calories in junk food.
Besides the increased chance of weight gain and obesity, the main downside of eating late at night seems to be that it shortens the amount of time you fast. For example, if you eat your last meal at 6pm and don't eat again until 8am, your body gets a full 14 hours of fasting on a daily basis. This is important because fasting has countless health benefits including: increased production of anti-aging and growth hormones, increased fat loss, ability to detoxify harmful substances, stronger immune system, and last but not least, there is growing evidence that fasting extends your overall lifespan. So the next time you have a late night food craving, whether it is healthy food or junk food, ask yourself if the short-term gratification is really worth destroying the benefits you can get from the extended period overnight fast.
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