..............IBIZA PERSONAL TRAINER - HEALTH & FITNESS ARTICLES
.......................... ........MYTH-BUSTING - EATING IN THE EVENING
.......................................................- Kev Grant
............................................www.ibizapersonaltrainer.com
In my role as a Personal Trainer, obviously I get hear more of people's beliefs about food, weight-loss etc than most, and there is ahuge range of misinformation and half-truths out there, but this does seem to be a very widely held one, the belief that eating after a certain time of day or night, and particularly so that eating is going to somehow make you fat, or prevent you losing weight.
This belief is not just prevalent with the general public, but is also touted by Fitness Pros, EXAMPLE who should know better, so it's no real wonder that people are confused. If you looked at the link in the previous sentence you will note that the source study mentioned was not referenced, and is not easily found on the internet, and I've looked. I would also question the methodology used, and the alleged results.
i) supposedly everybody was given one meal a day consisting of 2000 calories, some in the morning and some in the evening - this would only be valid if they were testing a group of clones, i.e. identical size, weight, sex and metabolism, and all with identical daytime routines.
ii) supposedly all the night-eaters put on weight whilst all the day-eaters didnt. hmm. The calorific intake (maintenance, i.e. stay the same weight) range of my clients is currently between 1800 to 2880 calories, depending on again, age / sex / activity levels, but they supposedly managed to get the same result for everybody regardless.
Can you tell that I'm sceptical? my search also turned up THIS RESEARCH though, so at least the truth is also out there. I will state categorically (and contraversially no doubt) , if you consume less than your calorific requirements, that from a purely weight loss perspective:
i) it does not matter what time you eat them, day, night, all in one go, or spread out throughout the day.
ii) it does not matter what it consists of, ie. protein, carbs or fats. - You could in fact eat nothing but 4 Mars Bars per day and still lose weight if that is under your calorific requirements.
That said, from a Health & Nutrition point of view, obviously we do not advise eating only only Mars Bars, or having all your calories in one go, in the middle of the night etc, because you need vitamins, minerals etc that this food energy won't provide. Also random eating habits mess with your metabolism, and can lead to muscle as well as fat loss, which inevitably means a reduction in metabolism, as it is only muscle tissue that can metabolise (burn) calories. The best way to fuel your body is to:
a) Know how much you need to consume. Anything else is guesswork and you may as well try and hold back the tides, as guess how much you need, how much you burn and accurately get it right. You can download a FREE NUTRITIONAL & HR VO2 CALC SPREADSHEET to accurately calculate your precise needs.
b) Have a substantial, high fibre, low GI breakfast as soon as you can reasonably do so. This fires up your metabolism after the night's fasting, trickle-feeds glucose into your system slowly over several hours, preventing the "sugar-rush" highs and lows some people experience from a white bread, white sugar type of breakfast.
c) Spread out your daily calorific allowance across 5 or 6 small meals, eating every 2-3 hours apart at the most.
This strategy seems to be the best overall approach for most people, to prevent the over-consumption that usually follows long gaps between meals and will lead to weight gain if it takes you over your calorific needs.
However, as it is important that whatever our nutrition plan, we need to be able to realistically fit it our actual lifestyle, I always advise my Clients that if they know they are going out for a meal etc, not to worry about what time they eat, just ensure that you've gone a little light on intake earlier in the day, and if you go over that days intake because of the meal, don't worry about it, enjoy your meal, but aim to recover your over-consumption, spread out over the next 2 or 3 days.
Happily the Energy Balance Equation works on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, which allows us a little flexibility most of us need to live our real-lives, so if you're an evening eater, relax and enjoy, it's ok... ;)
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