Eating Before Bed

While not an “official source”, I make sure to have a P+F meal (usually a protein shake) every night before bed and I lost 22lbs and dropped from 29 to 19%bf over 4 months. Gotta’ keep the metabolism revved up and get in the protein!

I always sleep better if I have a nice cold Grow! shake next to my bed. I find it very, very difficult to go to sleep if I haven’t had atleast something in the 2 hours prior to sleep.

[quote]Spad wrote:
OneEye wrote:
Nat, thanks. I’ll look into those.

Spad, you’re dealing in extremes, and I’m dealing with the “norm.” Don’t bring up stupid points for the sake of an argument.

I’m only dealing in the extreme to point out the fact that it does matter when you choose to take in your calories. “As long as it balances out at the end of the day” is not always right. As long as you use common sense with your meal times you really have nothing to worry about.[/quote]

Well since you said that breakfast should be the biggest meal of the day, I could also say “Well if you ate 2000 calories for breakfast and then small snacks the rest of the day…”

But that would be idiotic, wouldn’t it? Point made. I never mentioned any stupid eating habits like that, so why bring it up? Simply to argue. Anyone with half a brain knows not to eat 80% of your calories in one meal. Except the Warrior Diet people.

Thanks to everyone for your input, I’ll have to show her this thread at least.

If you are fit, and the mother is a fatty, it makes things easier on you since the proof is in the pudding. And if she pulls the “Im a nurse” crap then ask her why she thinks that you get fat from eating before bed and then when she gives you a crappy answer like you dont burn it off, tell her that you burn calories 24/7 and eating before bed saves muscle from wasting away thereby making you burn more calories and look/feel better.

sorry, no articles with citation for you but hope i helped a little.

Spad, try to do squats till you cant feel your legs and then chow down on oatmeal!! the very thought makes me want to hurl.

also, if you lost 155 pounds in 10 months, it comes out to be about 3.8 pounds per week. this is a lot of weight, and you probably lost a substantial amount of muscle (judging by the rate of weight lost.). Im assuming you were seriously overweight and health issues may have prompted the change, but i could be wrong. Feel free to correct me here.

Your situation just doesnt jive with someone looking to lose a few pounds here or there.

Oh, one last thing. FANTASTIC job losing so much weight. it must have taken a ton of determination to do that. My hat goes off to you.

I don’t think Spad’s point was necessarily pedantic. While based on what I’ve read here, he’s not a good source of information, the point he illustrated there WAS important. You DID state, as an absolute, that it’s total calorie balance that counts. Now, you’re recanting that belief. Which is it? If you really and truly believe the notion that it’s calories in vs. calories out, then you’ll accept what he says as true. If you don’t, then you accept that other things factor into weight loss.

[quote]LoneLobo wrote:
I don’t think Spad’s point was necessarily pedantic. While based on what I’ve read here, he’s not a good source of information, the point he illustrated there WAS important. You DID state, as an absolute, that it’s total calorie balance that counts. Now, you’re recanting that belief. Which is it? If you really and truly believe the notion that it’s calories in vs. calories out, then you’ll accept what he says as true. If you don’t, then you accept that other things factor into weight loss.[/quote]

In other words, if I say something, I have absolutely no room to ammend myself? You draw a hard line. Let me rephrase (since it’s now you being pedantic):

If you’re eating sensibly, as a general rule, total caloric intake is what matters, rather than the timing of a single meal.

For the record, I didn’t state anything as an absolute, nor did I “recant” any of my beliefs, nor do I feel the need to present myself according to your strange rules. Maybe next time I’ll outline the entire thought process behind what I’m saying, and try to cover every “if, and, & but” that I can think of so that I won’t have to come back and recant my beliefs (clarify my position).

[quote]OneEye wrote:
My fiance’ holds the belief that eating late at night will make you fat. She’s gained a few pounds recently and she’s convinced that it’s because she’s been eating late at night. Her mom, who is a nurse (which makes it even worse for my side), has this belief as well. I know this is wrong, but I can’t back myself up well enough, and we get into this argument a lot.

I asked her about her food intake for the day, and it turns out she got about 1400 calories. I told her that she should be much more worried about this than what time it is when she eats. She knows she needs to eat more but she still says she shouldn’t eat before bed because her “body won’t burn off those calories.” By the way, she doesn’t have an eating disorder, she just didn’t realize she was getting so few calories.

Anyway, I convinced her to have a healthy snack before bed to make up for some of those calories, but then her mom walked in and said “that’s going straight to your belly.” This really drives me crazy.

I told her I’d find articles and studies that support my position, but I’m kind of coming up dry. There are a few articles I’ve found that mention it briefly, but it’s like “don’t fall for the eating before bed makes you fat myth,” and that’s all. And none with any references or anything like that. I’m sure they’re here, but I haven’t found them. Could anyone point me in that direction? Articles with references at the end would be ideal. Studies on pubmed would be cool too, but I’m so inexperienced with pubmed that all I’m finding is studies about anorexia and bulemia.

Of course, I’m not asking for anyone to go searching for me, but if you have any links saved or close at hand that would be great.

Thanks in advance![/quote]

The fact that her mom is a nurse is an indication that “mommy”, with all due respect, knows very little about the correlation between proper nutrition/training/building a better physique. Personally, I think this holds true for most healthcare professionals who are much more comfortable prescribing drugs than acquiring factual knowledge on nutrition.