 Why it matters when we eat after dark…
Few of us realize the degree to which our sleeping patterns affect our weight. But this week, a well-designed study shed some light on how the absence of darkness while we sleep may contribute to weight gain, at least in mice. It may be that “a calorie is not always a calorie” when the biological clock is upset by exposure to light. Or, perhaps, as this article from caloriecount.com suggests, the time when food is eaten may be more important than was previously thought.
Staying Up Late
With the invention of the light bulb at the start of the 20th century, humans became exposed to unnatural light at night. Now, besides staying up after nightfall, people commonly fall asleep with lights on from TVs, computers, other gadgets, and outdoor lights.
Weight Gain and Sleep
The scientists exposed three groups of mice to different light cycles. Group-1 was exposed to 16 hours of bright light and 8 hours of darkness; Group-2 was exposed to 24 hours of bright light; Group-3 was exposed to 16 hours of bright light and 8 hours of dim light. The three groups of mice ate the same amount of food and got the same amount of exercise, but the mice in Groups-2 and -3 gained almost 50 percent more weight than the mice in Group-1 and they experienced a rise in blood sugar too. The dim illumination was akin to having a portable TV in a bedroom.
Eating Instead of Sleeping
The researchers noticed that the mice exposed to light ate more than half of their calories during normal sleeping hours, and so they went back to the lab to control the time when the mice ate. The three groups of mice were exposed to the same differing light cycles, but the time when they ate was controlled. It turned out that the mice in Groups-2 and -3 did not gain weight when their mealtimes were restricted to normal activity hours. What mattered more than light was timing of meals.
The Bottom Line
Hunger can strike at all odd hours and when it does late at night, no matter what time it is, the hunger pangs refuse to ebb. You invariably seek solace in your refrigerator when you start looking for a midnight snack. Midnight hunger pangs are a common phenomenon but they are not only inconvenient but also has bad effects on your health.
Snacking at midnight first of all disrupts the metabolism. The body is used to getting relaxed late at night and the metabolism also is slow. When you eat at this time, the digestive system pushes to digest the food. This disrupts the metabolic cycle and the additional food does not get digested by the time you are up in the morning ready for breakfast.
Therefore it is highly likely that you will not have the right amount of breakfast. This makes you eat between meals during the day, which tends to add on to the weight. Also the digestive system that is meant to rest at night does extra work.
Secondly, late night snacks usually are not healthy. The hunger is sudden and you usually do not prepare something for yourself. Cheese and bread or fruits are the common available options. If you have an unhealthy snack, it adds on to your weight and disrupts the metabolic activities as mentioned earlier.
If you have fruits, chances are high that you will have acidity and you might not be able to sleep properly. The digestive system gets overworked and the extra food content disrupts the whole cycle and if you develop a habit of snacking at midnight, your digestion will get thrown out of gear.
There are many tips to avoid midnight snacking. If you have the urge, drink a glass of water or two. You can also opt for herbal tea with artificial sweetener. Warm food tends to satisfy your appetite better. Stick to your meal times. Have the last meal 3 hours before sleeping and top it with a light salad so that there is enough fiber in the body along with a lot of water content. Brush your teeth before sleeping. That will prepare you mentally not to eat.
It is probably much too soon to extrapolate the results of the mice studies to humans, but it is interesting to think about whether weight gain and glucose control is related to when calories are consumed. Light probably disrupts the biological clock, and when that’s combined with nighttime eating, weight gain and blood sugar problems may ensue.
But in the meantime, it’s best to make eating after the sun goes down an exception and not the rule.
For more infomation on healthy eating, lifestyle and pilates based exercise tips, visit our website. We offer a full range of private pilates, personal training and fat loss programs at Pilates 1901, Kansas City’s premier pilates studio! Call 913 499 7510 for more information!
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