Does night eating makes you gain extra weight?

To tell you the truth, this one question was constantly playing on my mind time and again (partly because I am one of those individuals who have a tendency to munch on a snack or two at midnight ).. So, I’ve decided to do a little bit of research to unveil this significant issue. And what do you know, I finally came up with this conclusion, ‘eating at night doesn’t necessarily make you fat’ . But anyway, you have to take into consideration that this just my conclusion, your own research results may vary.

You may be wondering about why I dare to make such a statement? Well, I will share with you about what I’ve learned so far:

Why night eating makes us gain weight?
- our body metabolism is at its lowest peak at night, therefore the food we consume at night will be slowly digested, then store in the body as extra fat
- our metabolism is slowest while we are sleeping
- if we are less active at night, then we will burn fewer calories
- needless to say, we will gain extra weight if we consume a large meal with a high level of carbs intake just before to going to bed

Why night eating may not make us gain weight?
- there are other primary factors to consider such as our calorie intake and energy balance for the day. If you are caloric deficit (meaning, if your body lacks calorie for the day), you may as well lose fat while eating at night!
- fat loss is speed up if you eat less at night (meaning, we can still eat at night!) and consume your last meal at least two hours before bedtime
- if we exercise or do a little bit of training before consuming any meal at night, the food we eat is very unlikely to be converted into fat because it will be use for our body recovery process (muscle repair and growth process)
- excess calories will be stored as fat over time, regardless of whether they are taken in during the day or night

All in all, I’ve concluded that our meal timing is not important, be it in the morning, evening or night, because the only vital thing to consider in order to lose weight is to take in just enough calories which your body requires daily. If you consume more calories that your body burns in a day, well, then you will likely to gain extra weight, no matter what time you consume your food!