Eating Before Bed

There are numerous articles & discussions on whether it is good or bad to eat after dinner snacks or a snack later at night before you head to bed. I am sure many of you have heard Oprah & Bob Greene, her trainer, say not to eat 2 hours before bed. That is a must for his program & Oprah tells her audience it is of prime importance. Now, I like Oprah and she has done a lot of good & her experts have great advice.... but, I disagree with this notion that you have to stop eating 2-3 hours before bed.

Now, saying that, if you are a person that does not fuel your body all day long with the right foods, then yes, you are going to come home starving & you will eat everything in sight. Most likely you will eat things that are not great for you and food that may be high in calories, high in bad fats, not the healthiest choices and just plain too much of them! In that case, eating later at night is going to be a problem. You are just ingesting too many calories & they are calories that are just going to sit there. Even healthy food can make you gain weight if you eat too much of it!!!

Also, if you know that you can't handle the night snacks, than just stop eating 2 hours before bed. Brush your teeth if you have to & that will keep you from eating more. There are many people that have lost weight just by not eating 2-3 hours before bed.

For me, I have an after dinner snack & it may be only 1-1.5 hours before I go to bed. BUT, it is a snack that I know exactly what the calorie count is for it. I don't over do with 500++ calories as an after dinner snack. My snack is in the 150 calorie range & I make sure it fits in with my food plan for that day.

So, there you are.... if you think you can handle limiting your after dinner snacks to healthy choices & you watch the calorie count so that you are not eating way too many calories at night than I say not to worry. As always, do what is right for you, what works for your schedule & what you know you can handle for the long term.

Read an article on this here: http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2008/12/31/the_eating_late_at_night_myth_were_not_gremlins.php