How are calories stored and used.
“Won’t eating at night make me fat?”
This is one of the most common questions I get asked when I design clients’ meals.
No. Eating at night doesn’t make you fat.
Even if you ate all your calories right before bed, it wouldn’t make you fat. You only gain weight if you are in a surplus - meaning you consistently consume more energy than you expend.
So if you eat one huge meal containing 3,000 calories and your maintenance calories sit at 2,500 you’ll gain weight even if you ate one meal like that once in the morning, and went hungry for the rest of the day. On the contrary, if you ate 6 meals all adding up to about 2,500 calories - even eating right before bed - you won’t gain weight. This is of course taking any water weight out of the equation and presuming you do so consistently everyday.
So if eating at night doesn’t make you fat then where did this theory come from?
While its true, eating certain macronutrients at certain times of the day have their benefits, especially for active people like athletes and people who spend much time on their feet, ultimately, if we are strictly speaking about weight loss and weight gain, its the total sum of calories that are consumed in any given period, that will determine whether a person gains or loses weight.
Where does energy come from?
Now I’m no scientist, but from what we’ve learnt from high school, we know that energy cannot be created or destroyed - only transferred. What this means in simple terms is that the foods that we eat either gets transferred into energy elsewhere or it gets stored in our bodies.
What does this mean for nutrition? Well it simply means that no living thing in this universe can break the laws of thermodynamics, so to put it in practical terms, if you don’t use the energy you consume, that energy then turns into fat. This is where you hear the terms “energy in versus energy out”, and while that phrase is often over simplified, it is still true, a person who consumes more than they expend will gain weight, and a person who consumes less than they expend will lose weight.
How can this help you on your journey to weight loss?
Start by understanding how to track calories.
Well for starters, you can begin to design meals that you enjoy and eat them whenever you want, and space them out so that you don’t ever feel overly hungry, which can often lead to bouts of binging. You can also create better options for a late night snack by the TV, choosing more whole foods that offer more satiety than processed foods.
Takeaways. (Not the food type, but the brain type.)
Hunger is not necessarily a sign you are in a deficit
Eating at night will not make you any fatter than eating in the day time
The total calorie consumed is what determines whether you lose or gain weight
If you monitor your food intake it doesn’t matter when you eat. This is true for most people excluding extremely active people like athletes in which case, a further look into meal timings can be beneficial.
One more thing, before I sign off, tracking how many calories you burn using your phone or smart watch is likely a very inaccurate way of tracking your calorie expenditure. Be careful what data you are following.
If you want a rough guide on how to track calories, check out this blog I wrote here.
