Experts in health consider breakfast the most important meal. Lunch and dinner, however, are the least important. Your metabolic rate is higher in the morning than it is later in the day. Weight gain has been linked to eating late at night. A study published in Cell Press Selections found that late-night meal intake is associated with health problems such as weight gain and altered cholesterol. It is probably time to stop eating until the early hours of the morning. Here’s why?
Sometimes we eat late at night, or succumb to hunger pangs and eat more. We all eat too many calories and eat heavy food. Dr. Zamurrud Ptel, Consultant Dietician at Global Hospitals Mumbai says that our bodies are more efficient when food is eaten in daylight hours. This means that eating dinner at night can cause weight gain, as opposed to eating meals of the same caloric value during the day. Your daily calorie requirements and how much you eat at meals will determine the number of calories that you should consume at dinner. The daily calorie requirements range from 1,800 to 3,000. You need 2000 calories per day if you eat two snacks. Add 100 calories to each snack and that will leave you with 1800 calories. You can divide your daily calorie intake into three meals to get 450-650 calories for dinner.
Shilpa, a Macrobiotic nutritionist, and Health Practitioner, says that late-night eating should not be encouraged. For a healthy body, and weight reduction, it is best to have a gap of three hours between meals and bedtime.
It is generally believed that you should not eat at night as your metabolism will slow down, decreasing the likelihood of you burning calories at night. Although your metabolism does not stop working when you sleep, it doesn’t work as it should. This can lead to weight gain by adding fat to your body.
It is best to consume food two to three hours before you go to bed. Keep your body healthy by eating healthy food!
