The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Mike]

Di found this article and we shared with others.
I just love finding things that reiterate what the TSFL and Medifast programs have been saying all along:


Don't deny yourself food after 8pm

Remember the infamous diet rule of not eating after 8pm? Well, it's years later since many changes have been made to what was once considered to be sound dietary advice (has anyone seen the new food pyramid?), and most people now agree that cutting off your food this early may not be the best idea.

Unless you happen to go to bed at 9pm (which very well may be the case), you may want to keep eating up until an hour or so before you fall asleep. Eating any closer to bedtime may interfere with your sleep. Denying yourself food hours before bedtime, however, can actually cause you to slow down your metabolism over time.

Even though your body naturally slows your metabolism while you sleep, you are still burning calories. If you sleep for eight hours, for example, that's eight hours of calorie burning (albeit less than when you're awake), coupled with the amount of hours from the time you stopped eating until the time you fell asleep. So, you could be looking at upwards of 8 to 10 hours of not having any new food in your system, yet your body is burning calories the entire time. Seems like this should be a good thing, right? It is and it isn't.

It is a good thing because you need to burn calories to lose ! weight. We know that much. It's not a good thing because you are forcing your body to go into conservation mode. Our bodies, which are not as evolved as we would like to believe, respond to continuous periods of diminished caloric intake by slowing our metabolic rate. This, in turn, can cause some weight gain over time rather than weight loss.

Just be sure to eat something healthy at night. Everything I just said about weight loss and eating after 8pm is completely null and void if wolf down a tray of lasagna. Instead, try a healthy snack, such as a bowl of cottage cheese (if you can, or choose to, do dairy). The casein protein contained in cottage cheese digests very slowly, so it will stay in your system throughout most of the night. And, as an added bonus, foods that take longer to digest actually burn more calories in the process of their own digestion.

[Serendipity]

I always knew my bedtime pudding was a necessity.

BTW, Mike, what is the source of the article?

[Mike]

... or my hot cocoa

Its from www dot thatsfit dot com. You can do a search for 3/17/2008 and find it, or by the title.

[Janae]

....but I promised Oprah and Bob!!!



(They're big on not eating after 7:30 pm or so!!!!)

Oh well!!

Janae

[DogMa]

I don't eat without drinking water, too, so it's definitely out for me after about 8 p.m. I hate having to get up to potty during the night. (And not that I disagree, but is there ANY science in that article?

[Mike]

None specifically in that article. The reason that I posted that particular article is because it discusses the basic tenet of what the Medifast program espouses. When we go too long without something in our system, our bodies go into conservation mode. The Medifast program has you follow a scedule of eating every 2-3 hours, which also means, eating your last meal about an hour before bed.

I just found it nice to see something on a non-Medifasdt site that was espousing the same thing. There are alot of people that I talk with that don't understand that its okay to eat after 8 PM, and that they can lose weight if they do that (just not a huge meal after 8 PM).

[Janae]

I like the article's suggestion for stopping eating at least an hour before you sleep.

Everyone's schedules are so varied...setting a specific time to stop eating seems unrealistic. But, ending your eating day with a light snack (MF packet) at about an hour before sleep seems sensical to me.

Janae

[Diana]

And not that I disagree, but is there ANY science in that article?

Robin, I'll try to look it up. Usually, I forward Mike articles from either WebMD or from the Johns Hopkins nutritionist. I'll see if this is one of them or from some other source.