Why You Shouldn’t Eat Late in the Evening
To improve your health, organize you daily schedule so that you’re not eating anything after 8pm (or even 7pm, if you can manage it).
There are two reasons why.
- Putting food into your stomach soon before you lie down can cause symptoms of acid reflux, or make them worse.
When you’re sitting or standing, gravity pulls down on your stomach contents and prevents reflux. Without gravity, a full stomach can press upward against the underside of the diaphragm, causing unpleasant symptoms, even for those without full-blown reflux.
If you eat a late dinner, you’re also asking your intestinal tract to continue spinning its digestive gears long into the night. That’s not fair to your gut, nor does it allow for a restful night’s sleep.
2. Your metabolic system has been designed to work best when periods of fasting are interspersed with short bursts of eating. Nibbling constantly throughout the day, and topping it off with a snack right before bed, throws this beneficial metabolic pattern into disarray. Your cells gradually lose their sensitivity to the hormonal signals – insulin and leptin – that turn active metabolism off and on.
Once your cells start on the path to insulin insensitivity, you’re but a short step removed from type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes occurs when your body’s response to insulin becomes so sluggish that your pancreas has to keep pumping out more and more of it.
If you want to do an even better job of keeping your metabolism primed and responsive to insulin, add in a full day of fasting once every few weeks. Then your cells will maintain their insulin sensitivity and jump into full absorption mode when nourishment does reappear – just like your kitty does when she meows for her food bowl at 5 am.
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