Is it bad to eat before bed

Is It Bad to Eat Before Bed?

Written by Taylor Jones, RD on October 28, 2016

Many people think it's a bad idea to eat before bed. This often comes from the belief that eating before you go to sleep leads to weight gain. However, some claim that a bedtime snack can actually support a weight loss diet. So what should you believe? The truth is, the answer isn't the same for everyone. It depends a lot on the individual. Eating Before Bed Is Controversial Whether or not you should eat before bed — defined as between dinner and bedtime — has become a hot topic in nutrition. Conventional wisdom says that eating before bed causes weight gain because your metabolism slows down when you fall asleep. This causes any undigested calories to be stored as fat. Yet many health experts say that eating before bed is perfectly fine and may even improve sleep or weight loss. Therefore, it's no surprise that many people are confused. Part of the problem is that the evidence on the matter actually appears to support both sides. Although many people believe that a slower metabolism during sleep leads to weight gain, your nighttime basal metabolic rate averages the same as during the day. Your body still needs plenty of energy while you sleep (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source). There is also no evidence supporting the idea that calories count more before bedtime than they do at any other time of the day. Yet despite the fact that there seems to be no physiological reason why, several studies have linked eating before bed with weight gain (3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source). So what is going on here? The reason is probably not what you expect. BOTTOM LINE:Eating before bed is controversial. Even though there seems to be no physiological reason why eating before bed would cause weight gain, several studies have found evidence that it might. Eating Before Bed May Lead to Unhealthy Habits The current evidence shows no physiological reason why eating before bed should cause weight gain. However, several studies show that people who eat before bed are more likely to gain weight (3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source). The reason for this is much simpler than you might expect. It turns out that people who eat before bed are more likely to gain weight simply because a bedtime snack is an extra meal and, therefore, extra calories. Not only that, but evening is the time of day when many people tend to feel the hungriest. This makes it even more likely that a bedtime snack will end up pushing your calorie intake over your daily calorie needs (5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source). Add the fact that most people like to snack at night while watching TV or working on their laptops, and it's no surprise that these habits might lead to weight gain. Some people also become extremely hungry before bed because they don't eat enough during the day. This extreme hunger can cause a cycle of eating too much before bed, then being too full to eat much the next morning, and again becoming overly hungry before bed the next evening (7Trusted Source). This cycle, which can easily lead to overeating and weight gain, highlights the importance of making sure you eat enough during the daytime. For most people, the problem with eating at night is not that your metabolism switches to storing calories as fat at night. Instead, weight gain is caused by the unhealthy habits that often accompany bedtime snacking. BOTTOM LINE:In most cases, eating before bed only causes weight gain because of habits such as eating while watching TV or eating too many extra calories before bed.