Eating before bed

[Devon8822]

What I am wondering is, if it is bad for you or unhealthy to eat a large meal before bed? I often have the beiggest meal of the day right before I sleep. any info would be appreciated. thanks

[MattFYF]

I don't think it's necessarily bad for you. I know from personal experience that if I try to eat a large meal before bed, I have a harder time falling asleep, and the quality of my sleep dives down.

The only thing I can think of is that if you're eating a large calorie meal before bed, you're not going to be able to burn off those calories while sleeping... hence, you might gain a little bit of weight. But as long as you're getting decent exercise, or not severely overstuffing yourself, or not eating really really big meals week after week after week, then there should be no problem.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[lasti]

I don't think it's unhealthy. The problem might be that your body can't put all its energy into its recovery because it has to deal with a lot of food. So your sleep quality might be not that good.

[Calculusaurus]

Eating a large meal before bed will spike your cortisol levels. High cortisol levels while sleeping = bad. It will reduce SWS amount. Cortisol levels naturally increase through sleep, spike to wake you up in the morning, and decline during the day until bedtime. It's best to have levels as low as possible at bedtime to get the highest quality sleep.

[silicon toad2000]

My understanding of eating before bed time is that we should be almost hungry just before bed.
The reasoning behind this that I have read is that the body normally uses sleep to regenerate and repair itself. If it has to spend the night digesting a large meal then it will not be able to devote as much time into repairing.
I would suggest maybe you try a 30 day trial of only eating half of what you would normally eat for dinner, put the other half in the fridge for breakfast.
See how you feel after 30 days.

[Iamsuperman]

My experience has been that if I eat a large meal before bed my sleep quality sucks, I'll end up sleeping longer and feeling much less rested.

[24evita]

QUOTE: As silicontoad2000 said

"My understanding of eating before bed time is that we should be almost hungry just before bed.
The reasoning behind this that I have read is that the body normally uses sleep to regenerate and repair itself. If it has to spend the night digesting a large meal then it will not be able to devote as much time into repairing. "

Precisely!
You need energy (calories) to sleep but nowhere near as you would get from a meal. So aside from minimizing the functioning of your system, plus the cortisol problem as a previous reader explained and the weight gain which can be quite drastic in some - it should not be done if you want to stay healthy and fit.

What I am wondering is why are you eating the last meal as the biggest meal. It is best to get 3 but even 4 - 6 small meals throughout the day for best metabolism. A meal should never be so big too that it leaves you feeling "stuffed".
I would definitely try to re-arrange my schedule to try to get in a nice breakfast, a bigger lunch and then a smaller and lighter last meal of the day - with lots of fruits and veggies as snacks throughout the day.

[groove88]

also i have read that protein takes about 6 hours to digest in the system, i presume fat to be the same if not more so. So a light meal would ideally be light carbs.. Before bed that is if you need to eat

[Keith]

Your digestive system slows down while you sleep. (I also have a vague feeling it works better if your torso is upright, but don't hold me to that).

If you're going to bed hungry and would rather not, my understanding is that you'd be better off having something an hour before bed that takes an hour to digest (eg. a banana).

[Matthew Shea]

It should be pointed out that weight gain is really just a simple function of calories in vs. calories out. If you're eating a big meal right before bed, you won't necessarily gain weight if the calories burned throughout the day balance the total calories in the food eaten.

The problem with eating late at night is that, for most people, any food eaten in the few hours just before bed is either junk and/or pure extra calories due to cravings and the like. In other words, it tends to throw off an otherwise-healthy calorie balance.

That said, I agree with the people who mention the digestive issues. It's not good to have a big meal in your gut right before bed. The risk of indigestion would be enough to put me off of it.

[Rockchick26]

I've always eaten right before bed and i've never weighed more than 113 pounds. I am not even a very active person,most days i just do the basics,get up,go to work,and sit around on the couch the other 8 hours i'm home. Good metabolism maybe,so i could be an exception to the rule. I eat before bed because if i dont,i get hunger pains before i fall asleep and then it makes it even harder to fall asleep cuz i dont want to get up and eat and have to brush my teeth again. And eating small stuff which doesnt take long to digest would not be digested in time,because it almost always takes me at least an hour to fall asleep. I usually have peanut butter toast (generous with the peanut butter LOL hey,thats the filling part!) So i would say not to worry about this as long as you get SOME type of physical activity during the day and aren't eating huge meals all day long. I have heard the phrase "breakfast like a king,lunch like a (?),dinner like a (some other word for poor person) LOL anyone know how this goes?