A Calorie is a Calorie–Except When It’s at Night

A calorie is a calorie—except when it’s at night.

Research is beginning to understand how our genetic makeup plays a role in metabolic pathways that turn on and off the enzymes and proteins responsible for either calories as energy or releasing stored energy as fuel.

Sleep & Body Weight

There are plenty of studies showing how lack of sleep (generally less than 7 hours a night) trips up you body’s natural hunger-regulating hormones, making it harder to control what and how much you eat.  Related research is looking at the time when we eat and how our  digestive enzymes and calorie-burning hormones are impacted based the time calories are consumed.

The research suggests that the human body is not designed (or optimized) to digest calories at night. (Of course, we can do it, it’s just not as healthy for us)  In fact, at night our body is primed to activate hormones that breakdown stored fat and sugars, releasing them into the bloodstream. New research reported in Nature Medicine this week found in an animal model study, the rodents’ bodies automatically turned on and off enzymes that either stimulated energy storage or energy burn-off, depending upon whether it was daytime or nighttime.  The researchers concluded: “[Our results]  highlight the importance of complying with our internal circadian clock. For example, since our body does not anticipate food at night and is preparing to generate more glucose, night-time eating is likely to shoot up blood sugar and thus may contribute to diabetes.”

A study published in the medical journal, Obesity, revealed that people who stay up latest are also more likely to be overweight.  And, when the researchers looked further at the data, that eating past 8:0 p.m. was an INDEPENDENT predictor of being overweight, regardless of how many hours the night owls slept.

Bottom Line: Don’t Fuel Up to Sleep

[sws_pullquote_left] Our bodies don’t need fuel to sleep. We’re not vampires! Or bats! We’re humans and our circadian clocks are set to be able to consume and burn energy during the day when we’re most active. Our bodies are not designed ot handle a lot of calories when they’re eaten at night, when our genes and metabolism are set up for resting.  [/sws_pullquote_left]

The results found that night owls ate some 754 calories after 8 p.m. while the normal sleepers ate 376 calories during the same time. Unless you’re an endurance athlete, shift worker or plan to go out dancing all night, eating that many calories (376+) after 8 p.m. is too much for 99.9% of us.

Nix Nighttime Eating

If you’re struggling to lose or maintain a healthy weight, try not eating after dinner and see if it helps. It took me a while to implement this in my home, but now it’s second nature. Once dinner is over, I clean up and turn off the light. I might have some water or tea but probably eat something after dinner less than 3 times a year.

If  you try this and find that you’re so hungry that you cannot go to bed,  try a light pm snack like a handful of nuts with a cup of tea; half of a PB& J on whole wheat; whole grain crackers with some low-fat cheese; half a cup of yogurt or cottage cheese with dried fruit or a piece of fresh fruit.

In most cases, you’ll find that your nightime noshes are out of a habit not necessarily because you have true physiological hunger.

–Julie Upton, MS, RD, CSSD

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