In todays health crazy world people are always making accusations about what is good and bad for your personal health. One of the topics that is highly de
bated is whether eating before bed is bad for you. The argument is that eating before going to sleep doesn’t give the body enough time to burn the calories. This leads to the body storing all of the calories and fat that was consumed. Although some people say that this is not true the evidence shows that eating before bed has a direct correlation to weight gain.
Normally when a person eats the first 1,000 calories of the day that are consumed is used to keep the body running. Those calories are sent around to body to make sure the organs are functioning properly. During the day once someone eats after they have consumed around 1,000 calories they food is sent to be stored, but the daily activities and excise lets the person burn that food off.
Also at night almost every single person has eaten enough to keep their body running. And once the food is consumed it takes the digestive system anywhere from 2-3 hours to start breaking down the food that was consumed. So when they walk to Canyon Pizza or McDonalds by the time they wake up in the morning the food has been digested and put into storage in the body.
Once the food is stored it is much harder to burn the calories and fat because it has been stored in the body. A McDonalds BigMac has 550 calories and on their website it says that it would take 153 minutes of walking to burn this off. That is the same as jogging for 63 minutes. But these numbers are for food that was just digested it would take longer to burn off the calories from the stored food.
A study was done at Northwestern to prove if eating before bed is actually worse than eating at any other time of the day. During the experiment one group of mice were fed before they went to bed, while another group of mice did not get fed. Aside from the pre-bed food the mice were on the same diets and amounts of exercise. The study shows that the mice who ate before they went to bed gained twice the weight as the mice who didn’t eat before they went to bed. This experiment proves that eating before bad does cause more weight game. The sample size was big enough to validate the point being proved, but because the experiment was done on mice it loses some of its credibility. Besides the fact that the experiment was on mice it proves the point that eating before bed will lead to weight gain.
Works Cited:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases_conditions/endo_description/hic_Fat_and_Calories
http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/burning-fat-myths-and-facts
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/negative-effects-eating-before-bed-3027.html
http://www.calorieking.com/foods/calories-in-sandwiches-burgers-burger-big-mac_f-ZmlkPTEwMTAyOA.html
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diet-truth-myth-eating-night-causes-weight-gain
Wow this is an unfortunate read for me because I eat before bed every night! I can’t help it sometimes, my biological clock makes me hungry so late at night. Luckily, I’m not gaining any weight! It’s really interesting to know that you don’t burn enough calories when you’re sleeping. However, something I remember learning is that you burn a lot of calories in your sleep. I’m curious to know if this is true or not, and if it is, do you still not burn enough calories in your sleep? Regardless, great post!
This blog caught my eye given the fact that I wrote something very similar to it! I figured together we could brainstorm and take from one another. I read and stated in my blog that some foods are actually good for you when you go to bed and in some cases they even help you get to sleep faster. Also, these facts may not be true for all people. As we know, all people are not the same. We are all different in our own ways. Some people have fast metabolisms that enable them to be able to end crazy amounts of calories. So with that being said, they could wake up and that cheese burger that was supposed to make them gain weight or be unhealthy might already be burned. I must jump on board with you though when you say that there is a strong correlation between high calorie intakes and weight gain. In class Andrew always talks about finding correlations and ruling out reverse causation. In this instance, I don’t think we could rule our reverse causation being that people over weight could be more prone to want high calories foods. Here’s a link explaining the things you should and shouldn’t eat before you take it down to go to bed. check it out http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20628881,00.html
This is something I’m 100% guilty of and I’ve always heard how awful it; however, I came across an article on time.com that explained how eating before bed can actually cause you to sleep better without gaining the calories. It all depends on which foods you eat before bed. According to the article complex carbs are good for you before you fall asleep!