Is 8 pm to late?

Hey everyone,

  I have noticed something about myself the past few days. I do great all day on my diet, but come like 8 pm I mess up big time and I snack on everything. It doesnt help that the other adults in the house are not dieting and all snack. I know thats not an excuse but it does not make it any easier for me not to snack. Anyhow on to my question. If I was to eat at say: 9:00 am(breakfast) 1:00 pm (lunch) 3:00 pm and 6 pm (snack) and have dinner at 8:00 pm would that be okay? I dont usually go to bed until 11:00 pm or later, so is 8: 00 still too late. I just figure if i eat something substantial at a later time I wont get those late night munchies. I look forward to reading all your opinions.

teresa

I often don't get to eat dinner til 8pm, and lost weight fine - as long as it fits into your calories.

The reason people came up with the idea to not eat after a certain time is because later eating is often mindless snacking that isn't included in your daily allowance, and because it was an easy way to cut a couple hundred calories from your diet - assuming anything past 8 was just snack food.

But if that's when you can have dinner, and it keeps you from snacking later, you shoudl be fine.

i acutally do this alot.

I eat breakfast and lunch and a snack around 4pm. then i workout from 5-6, by the time I get home and shower its like 730 and I eat dinner at 8pm. It really helps me control the burge to snack at night.

If it works for your go for it

I also find my self eating around 8pm or so. My schedule is pretty similar to what you suggested for yourself and it works for me!

6:45a - prerun snack

8:15a - breakfast

11:00a - snack

1:00p - lunch

3:45-4:15p - snack

7:45-8:30p - dinner (fluctuates depending on how late I'm at the gym and what I'm making for dinner that night)

9:00-9:30p - dessert (if I'm way under my cals for the day)

I find that I feel like I'm eating pretty much all day and I'm never really starving. Some of the concern with eating late is that if you go to bed too soon after eating, it actually can cause problems with digestion, including heartburn and trouble sleeping. I think as long as you have 1-2 hours to digest before bed you should be okay.

Thanks ever for your quick responses! I feel better about eating later now. I hope this does the trick for me. I really want to loose 10-15 pounds by September.

teresa

A little bit more advice, texasspeech, I have read a couple articles that say you should try to have even calories before noon and after. But I'm like you and I ususally eat late. Right now I'm on a diet that has me eating 4 times a day. I'm a night snacker too so I shifted my meals and I don't eat until lunch time, then my four meals fit in fine. It's not the best way to do things but it's working.

However, your diet looks great! You should try to have atleast 2 and a half hours between meals so maybe push the dinner to 8:30. If you find you don't want to have a full dinner so late, you could switch the 6 :00 snack to a dinner and snack on fruit around 8:30. What ever works best for you. Keep it up!

I don't get off work until 9, so I'm always eating between 9.30-10.30 -- and in bed usually around 11.30-Midnight.  It doesn't appear to have hampered my weight loss efforts.

The point is WHAT you eat late at night -- many people who eat later eat mindlessly, usually out of boredom, and that's where the calories come from.  Furthermore, if you eat later at night, your body has less time to digest the food, so if you step on the scale in the morning, it is possible to see a bump -- based strictly on sodium levels, undigested food, and waste in the body.

I have to say, I disagree with most of the above.  Everyone is different. Late night eating got me into ALOT of trouble.

If you had just come from a run or the gym and now you are eating...no big deal. You are still burning calories and will continue to burn into the night by working out later. If it is easy for you to add pounds and you are not working out on a regular basis, you are heading down the wrong path.  

Having said all of that....we ALL do this. When I fall back to this bad habit, the next day, I kick it up a notch on cardio and eat EXTREMELY clean. I am also 45 years old and those 'late night' habits came from my 20's and early 30's when ALL was forgiven. If I could do it all again, I would have broke from those habits then and would be 30 lbs lighter now.