The Truth About Late-Night Eating

Saying that snacking at one time of day over another packs on pounds is like saying one player made the whole team lose. While it’s easy to blame the last error, you have to look at everything that happened leading up to the end. By the laws of thermodynamics, weight maintenance comes from calories in vs. calories out. If you expend the same amount of energy (calories) you take in each day, your weight will remain the same. If you expend more, you’ll lose weight. Less, and you’ll gain weight.

That said, we need to look at the big picture. Let’s say you ate normally all day, but at night, you ate a larger meal than usual. In that case, you might gain weight because you’re eating more than you normally would. Or you might gain weight if you didn’t consume too much all day and then ate most of your calories at night before bed. In fact, studies have shown that eating one large meal at night may result in adaptive hyperlipogenesis, which is when the body produces excessive or abnormal fat production. This is not to say eating a normal portioned dinner at 9:30 p.m. would make you gain weight (think about the Europeans).   Read Here