Does not eating after 7 p.m. help you lose weight?

There are lots of articles in the press at the moment that say it's a myth that eating after 7 o'clock makes you pile on the pounds. Nevertheless, a girl at work swears having her cooked meal for lunch and a lighter meal in the early evening helped her and her husband lose weight. It makes sense to me that you're more likely to burn calories while you're awake and active than lying in bed!

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Does not eating after 7 p.m. help you lose weight?
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Anonymous User writes:

There are lots of articles in the press at the moment that
say it's a myth that eating after 7 o'clock makes you pile
on the pounds.

It is indeed a myth. You gain weight when you eat too much, no matter when
you eat it. You lose weight when you eat too little, no matter when you eat
it. The time of day is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, a girl at work swears having her cooked meal for lunch
and a lighter meal in the early evening helped her and her husband
lose weight.

It might have helped her change her lifestyle in a way that caused her to
consume fewer calories overall.

It makes sense to me that you're more likely to burn calories while
you're awake and active than lying in bed!

It's the total number of calories that you eat and burn that matters, not
specific activities or foods.

On 3 sep, 23:58, Mxsmanic wrote:


"It might have helped her change her lifestyle in a way that caused
her to
consume fewer calories overall. "

Right on, sister! In my case I eat most of my food at night because
that's when I'm most hungry. My diet looks much like the Warrior Diet.
I've started it 4 days ago. I'll try it for a few weeks to see how it
goes. I take 1200 calories a day in average.

You gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn off in a day,
regardless of the time of day. I think that the whole "not eating after 7pm"
thing is because for many people that is the time of day that people
generally eat out of bordom...such as sitting in front of the tv. When you
aren't paying attention to what you are eating, you really do take in quite a
lot of calories. So, if you are careful about watching your portion sizes
and don't go over your daily caloric limit, you can eat at 10pm if you want.
There is no magical time of day to eat :-)

On Sep 3, 11:58*pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Anonymous User writes:

It's the total number of calories that you eat and burn that matters, not
specific activities or foods.

The total calories burned depends on your activities throughout the
day. Sleeping and being awake ARE different activities.

Granted, if you burn a total of Y calories a day (sleeping included),
and eat X calories a day, you will have a consistent NET caloric
figure. It certainly won't look like that in the morning, though. If
I eat more than a yogurt (~100 cal) or so late at night, my weight
will be a smidge higher in the morning. On the order of a tenth of a
pound, but it DOES have an effect.

It's just that the effect is completely blown out of proportion.


No, this woman probably just changed her habits, as mentioned above.
When you set a time to stop eating at night, you start planning when
you're going to eat, so you make that deadline. When you plan your
meals, you're not taking a meal whenever you can, and you give
yourself the power to make an informed and healthy choice about what
you eat.

James G writes:

The total calories burned depends on your activities throughout the
day. Sleeping and being awake ARE different activities.

Sleeping and being awake at rest are almost identical in terms of calorie
burn.

Granted, if you burn a total of Y calories a day (sleeping included),
and eat X calories a day, you will have a consistent NET caloric
figure. It certainly won't look like that in the morning, though. If
I eat more than a yogurt (~100 cal) or so late at night, my weight
will be a smidge higher in the morning. On the order of a tenth of a
pound, but it DOES have an effect.

Your weight will end up higher at any time of day, not just in the morning
after sleeping, assuming that you eat more than you burn.

Small intakes of carbohydrates may never be turned to fat; they end up as
glycogen stores and are recoverted to glucose as needed. This is true up to
about a day's worth of calories, spread over the day.

On 2008-09-05, JessAnne u45994@uwe wrote:
You gain weight if you eat more calories than you burn off in a day,
regardless of the time of day. I think that the whole "not eating after 7pm"
thing is because for many people that is the time of day that people
generally eat out of bordom...such as sitting in front of the tv. When you

Precisely!

It's very easy for most people with nine-to-five dayjobs to do two things: eat
a small breakfast (or skip it entirely) and snack throughout the evening.

It takes discipline to eat a proper breakfast, because you have to set aside
the proper time to prepare it and eat it. This means you have to set the alarm
earlier, and not snooze it ten times.

It also takes discipline not to overeat when you are at home in the evening.
There are snacks in the cuboard, and a well-stocked fridge. It's you, food, and
hours to spare. And time generally /isn't/ on your side.

Discipline is the most plausible explanation for any apparent link between
successful long-term weight maintenance and eating big breakfasts and small
dinners.

Kaz Kylheku wrote:

It also takes discipline not to overeat when you are at home in the evening.
There are snacks in the cuboard, and a well-stocked fridge. It's you, food, and
hours to spare. And time generally /isn't/ on your side.

Discipline is the most plausible explanation for any apparent link between
successful long-term weight maintenance and eating big breakfasts and small
dinners.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". This could be
viewed as another way to phrase discipline or not depending on
your view. In the prevention view, eating a good breakfast prevents
hunger for much of the rest of the day so it makes it easier to not
overeat.

I suspect that "not eating after 7PM" tends to mean eating the
same as before until 7PM and then deleting any evening snacking.
If so then it's easy to figure out why it works - It's less total
eaten
at a time that will have little effect on your total hunger for the
day.

On Sep 8, 2:33*pm, Kaz Kylheku wrote:


Discipline is the most plausible explanation for any apparent link between
successful long-term weight maintenance and

ANYTHING, as far as I'm concerned.

Things like not eating after 7, eating breakfast, etc., are not
necessarily the CAUSE of maintenance, they're just empirically
associated with people who maintain. I'm sure there are people who
follow all the "rules" and still gain weight back, or people who do
whatever they want, and keep the weight off for the rest of their
lives.

In the end, it's really up to you to WANT to keep the weight off, and
take steps to correct any undue weight gain that occurs during
maintenance. Everything else is just personal preference and
"tricks."



Still, I do feel better when I eat breakfast (even just a bagel and
cream cheese, and a cup or two of piping hot black coffee). It
doesn't fill me up, but I'm not hungry until lunchtime. And because
I've already "spent" some calories, I can actively plan out my next
meals for that day, with specific calorie values in mind.

As a college student, though, I regularly eat after 7PM. Particularly
when my job keeps me at work until thereabouts (IT work is easier with
no users logged on), and I don't get a chance to grab dinner. Over
the course of 24 hours, I'm still eating the same number of calories,
and over the course of a week, I'm still coming up short, and I'm
still losing weight. As long as any changes I make are very stable
and I incorporate them into my routine (ie. a yogurt EVERY NIGHT at
around 9pm), I find the effect disappears over time.

In the end, little tips and tricks like not eating after 7 are only a
means to an end. They're just tools that help a majority (particular
those 9-5ers who eat dinner at roughly 6-ish, and maybe are tempted to
munch on an excess bag of chips or a bowl of icecream afterward,
having already used up their daily calorie allotment), and do much
less for others. It's all just preference.


Sleeping and being awake at rest are almost identical in terms of calorie burn.

I won't really contest that (especially with an "almost" qualifier),
but do you have any respectable data on it? I've only ever seen
"expert" answers and the like online, but it never bothered me enough
to dig deep into medical journals, etc.


As Msxmaniac said, and as most faux dieters would rather ignore,
"It's the total number of calories that you eat and burn that matters,
not specific [habits] or foods."