Does Eating Carbs At Night Help You Lose Weight

The other day, two of my fellow coaches and I were talking about our various meal plans and how (at least) one of them suggests that carbs not be eaten at night. I don’t agree with this, and made it known. One of the great things about my team is that we can have these conversations without hurt feelings or judgment. I don’t have to agree with 100% of the things my company does, and that’s totally okay.

One of the other coaches said that the person who created the plan had a Masters in Nutrition Sciences, so she obviously had a reason for leaving carbs out of the evening meal.

I have an Associates degree in Foreign Languages and am a semester away from a Bachelors degree in Web Development. None of my formal education is based around nutrition or fitness.

Is It Really Important To Avoid Carbs Intake At Night To Lose Weight?

I do, however, have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a borderline-narcissistic need to be right, so I do my research. Constantly.

Before I post anything or solidify an opinion, I make sure I’ve looked over case studies and information released by experts, including Registered Dietitians who have MS degrees who aren’t partnered with my company. In the age of the e-expert, though,

That isn’t enough. You have to prove it. So here are some stellar resources about eating carbs late and night and why, no, it won’t make you get fat and why youdon’thave to cut them out of your dinner.

Should You Eat Carbs Before Bed?

Leanne Ward is a sports dietitian known as @the_fitness_dietitian on Instagram. She has a certificate in public health, a bachelor of health science with a focus on nutrition, a masters of dietetics,

Any macronutrients (carbs, fat & protein) will make you gain weight if you’re eating in a surplus…As long as the calories you’re consuming at night are within your body’s required amounts, you will not gain weight. McKel Hill, MS, RDN, LDN

Any ‘guru’ who tells you not to eat carbs past a certain hour, let’s say 3 or 4 pm for example, has no idea what they’re talking about.

Healthy Late Night Snacks For Weight Loss

She gives a detailed rundown of carbohydrates here, and she linked to a medical study about the glucose and insulin responses to meals at night here.

You can learn about how high cortisol levels and high insulin levels stalls weight loss, and how cortisol dips throughout the day, allowing you to tap into weight loss later in the day.However, one expert has finally debunked this myth - and claimed that eating carby foods after dark may actually speed up weight loss.

Leading fitness trainer and nutrition specialist Matt Hodges has revealed that eating dishes such as rice, pasta and bread before you go to bed can help you blitz more body fat when you wake up the next day.

When You Eat Carbs Before Bed, This Is What Happens

We know now that in the later stages of sleep our bodies become metabolically active and burn fat anyway, so the idea that you put on weight from a meal you ate close to bedtime while you’re sleeping is rubbish.

He also suggests a carb-rich meal at night could help muscles use glycogen, the fuel our muscles need, for exercise the next morning.

Apparently carb-heavy foods help the body release chemicals such as tryptophan that aids in production of brain neurotransmitters that help calm calm our nerves and help us stay asleep.

Best Healthy Snacks For Weight Loss

She added: Porridge oats cooked with skimmed milk just before bed is a great snack that is low in fat and high in nerve-calming B vitamins.

Israeli researchers tested the theory on 70 volunteers who they split up into two groups, one who ate their carbs during the day and the other who ate 80 per cent of them at night.

It found that eating carbs at night “may prevent midday hunger, better support weight loss and improve metabolic outcomes over conventional weight loss diets”.

Weight Loss Query: Does Eating Carbs At Night Make You Fat?

Graeme Tomlinson, an evidence based nutrition coach known as The Fitness Chef, admitted that this proves that the link between eating carbs at night and weight gain is a complete myth.

He added: For years this ‘no carbs at night’ metabolic artifice has plagued us to the point where people trying to lose fat still believe in it’s validity.

It’s concept was probably born out of the fact that our metabolism slows down as we may move less in evenings - and obviously sleep.

No, Eating Carbs At Night Won't Make You Fat

But according to a study published by the obesity journal, a test group that ate most daily carbohydrates at dinner, compared to those who spread them out during the day actually showed greater losses in total body weight, body fat and waist circumference.

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.This is something that I’ve been meaning to write about for a long time because this is just about the most ignorant dietary myth that’s still around and I hear it over and over again. Don’t eat carbs after ‘X’ o’clock because it will turn into adipose tissue.

I mean how many of you have heard this before or think this is true? That it is bad to eat carbs after 6, 7, 8, 10 o’clock at night or even midnight? Well, big shocker coming your way because I’m here to shed some light on this myth.

Do Carbs Really Make You Gain Weight? — Results Fitness

On January 5th, 2012 my father had a stroke (age 58). After a week in the hospital, the staff sent him home with a new diet to help drop about 50 lbs. Low sodium, low(er) fat, moderate protein and carbs. All good stuff and nothing weird as doctors can sometimes prescribe, though they did put him at 1800 calories, which is way too low for someone of his size.

About a month after his stroke he was struggling with his diet. Being the competitive bodybuilder that I am, I told him that the best shape I had ever been in, was when I trained for a bodybuilding show, and I encouraged him to do the same. After a few days, he decided to do a show that was in November. This gave him about 10 months to get in shape.

About 4 weeks in he was having a hard time eating all the carbs that we gave him. He simply could not eat enough rice and sweet potatoes to hit 280 grams. That is when I sat him down and had him eat almost half a gallon of low-fat vanilla ice cream.  Having struggled with his weight for 30+ years, he said the same thing that so many of my new Macro Blueprint clients say.. “You mean, I can eat ice cream, and still lose weight?”.

Will I Lose Weight If I Don't Eat At Night?

For the next 8 months, my dad ate low-fat vanilla ice cream as his last meal of the night, right before he went to bed, and week after week, month after month he continued to burn fat at an alarming rate.

Like everyone that has to diet for 10-12 months, his fat loss did stall, and we did have to drop his macros, but even during the last 6 weeks of his contest prep, when he got down to 100 carbs for the day, he was still eating ice cream before bed.

From mid March to November 10th my dad lost 58 lbs of fat, and gained 18 lbs of muscle to stop on stage at 180 lbs, all while eating ice cream at night!

Does Eating Late At Night Cause Weight Gain?

For years now, people believe that since they are closer to sleeping they should curtail carbohydrate intake, this is simply ludicrous. Carbohydrates at night don’t make you fat; too many total calories make you fat.

A study done by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem took 78 obese subjects and had them consume carbohydrates mostly at dinner for 6 months and results showed greater weight loss, abdominal circumference, and body fat mass reduction.

Additionally, if you train at night you NEED those carbohydrates to properly recover and start glycogen re-synthesis (stored carbs in the body that convert to glucose in the bloodstream). Insulin sensitivity is high after a workout, so it’s okay to eat a high amount of carbs at this time and not worry about storing excess carbs into fat.

Why Carbs At Night For Fat Loss

Your metabolism doesn’t say hey it’s night time, so that means I have to store these carbs into fat cells. There’s nothing about night time that changes your metabolism.

If you are not training at night and you eat the right amount of carbs to hit your daily macronutrient count, then you’ll be fine. On the contrary, if you’re living a sedentary lifestyle, you can eat a moderate serving of complex carbs at night (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, bran cereal, low-fat popcorn, brown rice, etc.) about the size of your fist with a lean protein source before bed.

I really don’t know where people got this notion of not being able to eat carbs after ‘X” o’clock because it will turn into adipose tissue. I’ve never come across a study or research that has proven facts to this myth.

Carb Backloading: Lose Weight Eating Carbs At Night

So, stop being Carbophobe and cutting carbs out after ‘X’ times because