The 100-Calorie Secret - Never Diet Again!

You Will Not Get Gain Weight It Your Large Meal of the Day is in the Evening. Calories are calories and the time you eat them is not important. Studies of metabolic rate thru the day for sedentary people show little variation. Eat more than you spend and you gain weight, eat less and you lose weight. Here are 3 tips for eating at night without gaining weight:

1. Clean the house, no boxes or bags of any snack, no ice cream in containers,  NO leftovers from dinner, throw all these away, you will eat them if you see them.

2. Snacks are all 120 calories or less in portion controlled containers, the portion is more
important than what is inside, but try for low carbs and high protein

3. There is 1 snack a night, and all the free ones you want like jello, fruits, zero sugar popsicles, "cup of soup," fudgsicles

4. Make sure  you narrow the time from eating dinner to going to sleep to minimum. If
you eat dinner at 5:30 or 6 PM and go to bed at midnight there is a lot of time to make
mistakes.

It has been commonly assumed that eating a large meal late in the evening or eating a snack between dinner and bed time is the worst thing you can do for losing weight. The logic: metabolism is slowest at night. Makes sense. But NOT exactly true.  Numerous measurements of metabolism at different times of the day show no significant variation except for a slight rise at  2- 3 PM, otherwise resting metabolic rate is very stable thru the day and night. Even if it were a little less late in the evening or at night it has no effect on weight gain or loss in humans.

Metabolism changes little thru the day:
Metabolism does actually change through out the day, depending upon eating and activity. For most individuals with sedentary jobs it is insignificant. For example,  the average person with a sedentary job burns 55 calories an hour sitting, sleeping, 75 calories an hour watching TV or using a computer, and 95 calories doing light house or office work. Not much of a difference.

NO evidence eating at night makes you fat:
Forgetting all of the metabolism calculations, here is what we know about night eating from human testing. There are no conclusive studies proving the assumption that eating late meals causes fat gain more than eating early meals.  A study at the Dunn Nutrition Centre in England found that volunteers who were fed a large lunch and small evening meal for one test period, then a small lunch and large evening meal during a second test period, had no difference in the amount of body fat that was stored, it was only total amount eaten in a 24-hour period that's important.

Misunderstanding that evening meal may be extra:

The widely held belief that late night eating causes weight gain originated in the misunderstanding revolving around the fact that the late night meal might or might not represent an extra meal. Skipping meals leads to impulsive eating and large portions  at the  end of the day, but eating the large meal of the day in the evening, either early or late has no effect on weight gain or loss as long as the calories for the whole day remains the same.

Late evening meal may help obese people lose weight:
Indeed, eating regular meals helps people regulate their appetite and overall food intake In fact, for some individuals who have severe problems eating in the evening, often made worse by working on a computer or watching TV late at night, shifting the large meal a little latter in the evening decreases the time for food mistakes.  Most people are fatigue in the evening and have the least control of the whole day, thus “saving” the calories for evening makes sense for many people.

It's all about what not when you eat:
It’s all about what you eat, not when.  Portion controlled snacks between dinner and bedtime has no effect on body weight unless they represent excess calories for the day.

More about Night Eating