Sunday, 19 July 2009
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Woes of Late Night Eating and Munchies
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Tonight I felt really guilty when my classes went almost an hour later than usual and by the time I could get anything for dinner, it was almost 10:30. Not wanting to eat a heavy meal so late in the night, I snacked on some fries and a homemade sandwich of light cheese and ham.
Thankfully I fill up easily on carbs, especially bread so I am usually at the comfortable feeling of being well fed. This way, my mind doesn't wander off and start craving for the full, warm dinner that I wished I could feast on instead of a sandwich.
I have read many articles and a lot of them suggest that in order to prevent obesity or weight gain of any sort, late night snacking/dinner should be avoided. My mother enforced that rule in our household that supper should not be consumed after 9 pm. In fact, the only we were allowed to snack on were fruits and the occasional cookie. One of the reasons she gave me was simply the fact that our body is like a huge clock. Basically, when we wake up in the morning, we are hungry because it is the start of the day, our stomachs are "working"; so come nightfall, our stomachs are in "rest mode" too, meaning our stomachs will have a harder time to digest food and so we shouldn't eat late at night. My family doctor recommends eating earlier than later too, but he also points out that as long as our meals are well proportioned and balanced out, late night eating occasionally is fine.
What do you guys think? Do you feel guilty when you have to eat late at night? What do you do when you have the late night munchies when you're already in bed?
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- From: crushediamonds@xanga
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Comments (15)
From the nutritional perspective, its not the time which food is consumed but the overall calorie intake and output. Even if you ate a huge 700 calories meal at 10pm and you have not eaten much through out the day, its not gonna coz any weight gain. Our bodies are smarter than that, our systems dont' just stop working because we go to sleep.... Of coz i'm not suggesting everyone to eat 700 calorie supper before bed time coz that's prob gonna make it uncomfortable to sleep and cause reflux but yeah.., there isn't anything wrong with eating a small bed time snack as long as its healthy.
@kaira_secret@xanga - I agree with this person. Well said.
Also, I think the reason people normally talk about night eating being bad is because it's usually when people pig out after dinner. So they're eating more calories than they should be. But if you can't eat dinner until 10 PM, go for it! It's not going to magically increase your waistline twice as much as normal just because you ate after an arbitrary time that for some reason people think it's bad to eat after.
lol my mom does that too, except it's at 4pm - and now I don't eat past 12pm.
I definitely feel guity if I eat late - annoyingly, what happens very often is that I go to sleep late, and get up (kind of subconsciously) at 3am and start eating. Fortunately I don't eat a lot... I just eat really early without really realizing it (as crazy as it sounds... haha. I do get very hungry)
What do you think?
I think it's a great rule, your mother is a pure genius. We definitely need more mothers like yours. I'm serious.
Fruits are practically the only thing I juice on during the night. By the way, did your mother teach you about not eating before you shower? Read it somewhere online. 
Do you feel guilty when you have to eat late at
night?
Do I feel guilty? Ummmm... Not that I know of... I normally give myself an hour or two of digestion before going to bed. Really depends on how much I ate. Do you feel guilty?
What do you do when you have the late night munchies when you're
already in bed?
If I can sleep through it, it probably won't bug me. I normally make sure I eat meals at certain time or snack when I'm hungry to make sure when I'm in bed, I don't feel that urge to snack. What do you normally do when you have the late night munchies and you're already in bed?
I don't really feel guilty when I eat late at night. Sometimes, I just can't sleep, so I snack on food and watch tv or read a book.
If I start to get hungry when I'm in bed, I'm pretty sure I'll sleep right through it. Otherwise, I just cut some fruit and eat it.
i usually save some of my allotted calories for a nighttime snack. obviously late-night binging is bad, but if some of your food is consumed at night and your overall intake is good, then it should be ok. i'm a little conflicted about the "rules" about eating at night because there's controversy on the topic.
Oh gosh. As a Pakistani person, I pretty much eat dinner late every single night. Last night - it was around 10:30. I guess it's just part of our culture. :D
i have an extreme problem of late night binging/overeating. i mean its been worse but i do think that if you consume 1000 cals worth of donuts and pure sugar right before bed even if you havent eaten much throughout the day that it would cause weight gain cause it is just sitting in your stomach and you have a less of a chance to burn it off.
hmm guilty, i guess not so much or i wouldnt continue to do it?
my dinner is at 11pm - thanks to night class -.-"
@imyourstargirl@xanga - Really? What time is lunch for you then? I don't think I'd be able to hold out till 10:30 on a daily basis if lunch was at 1 or so.. but wow.
@aiinos@xanga - I can't get to sleep when my mind is craving something or when I am hungry going to bed, so I end up snacking!! Ahhh, woe is me.
@kaira_secret@xanga - Eating healthy takes A LOTTTT of out me. -lol-
@choosingausernameishard@xanga - That is pretty smart, to allot some of the daily calories for a night snack. I might just try this!
@kawasaki_saiyan@xanga - Yes, I always end up feeling guilty and all so paranoid about how I look and feel if I do munch at night, which is why I cut down on heading out for supper with the friends and even drinking. If I do have the munchies, I either gulp down a LOT of water and make myself full that way or end up caving in. I can't sleep with an empty stomach.
I Go Downstairs, Get Some Crackers Or Something, Eat Them, Then Brush My Teeth (Again).
Or Maybe Even An Apple Would Be Good, Since This Is The HEALTH Kicker Blog.
@crushediamonds@xanga - Well, we usually eat lunch around three or so... and of course, there's snacking in between. But yeah, try going to an Indian wedding. Especially if it's in India/Pakistan - dinner isn't served till about 12AM.
I don't eat after dinner which is around 6
when I get hungry at night i just keep on drinking warm water
I eat a small 100-calorie snack around 8PM, and that usually keeps me from getting hungry. But if I do wake up hungry in the middle of the night, I get up and drink a big glass of ice water (or two!) and I'm full again, or at least enough so that I can go back to sleep and make it until breakfast. (Sometimes your body, or you, can confuse signals of thirst with signals of hunger.)
I usually stay up -really- late, so I do get hungry a lot. I'll avoid snacking as much as possible, which thankfully, I can do ! It's just my sister that ruins that for me ahaha she always makes a lot of food when she gets home from work and since we're both always up late, we both end up talking, too. So she brings her food in my room and offers me some, which, since I'm hungry, I'll take.
But I never make it a habit. I usually never eat bad during the day and I exercise at night, so a few extra calories won't hurt at that point, or at least that's what I tell myself ahaha