Everyone who monitors their appearance knows that eating after six hours is extremely undesirable, since late dinner causes weight gain. But almost everyone is faced with the fact that it’s not always possible to arrive home on time, and you often have to spend time preparing dinner, which further pushes its beginning. What to do in this case? Is it really harmful to eat in the evenings or are some foods allowed to have a snack before bedtime?
What time is allowed to dine
At what time will a late dinner not be considered harmful? Good news awaits those who abide by the “do not eat after six” rule and suffer because of this. Nutritionists say: in order not to recover and feel good, you need to eat 3-4 hours before bedtime. That is, if a person goes to bed at 12 o’clock, which is associated with his work or doing household chores, it is perfectly acceptable for him to have dinner at 8 or 9 o’clock.
In addition, as experts say, if you want to really lose weight, you can’t starve your body, leaving it without food for more than 12 hours. Such periodic starvation can lead to inflammatory processes in the gastrointestinal tract and stagnation in weight, and sometimes even to its increase. The latter is due to the fact that, while starving for a long time, the body is forced to use nutrients from the muscles. So, as soon as food enters it, it immediately converts it into fat.
In addition, a violation of the diet leads to a slowdown in metabolism, and this is directly related to whether you can lose weight or not. Therefore, it is very important to observe the diet and be sure to have dinner - ideally 3 hours before bedtime. It should be remembered that from a late dinner, which took place on time, you can recover only if it consists of harmful products.
Late dinner options
After work, where breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee, and lunch from a bun with tea, it’s hard to deny yourself and not eat a serving of mashed potatoes and a couple of cutlets for dinner. But just such a menu will not be very useful for digestion, because it consists of starch and proteins, which are very poorly combined with each other. What is considered ideal for an evening meal? Nutritionists insist that it should account for no more than 20% of daily calories.
What can I eat for late dinner? The body basically tells itself which foods it wants to see on a plate. But again, to maintain health it is very important that they bring the body exclusively benefits. So, if you want to eat a piece of bread with butter, it is better to replace it with low-fat cottage cheese and whole grain breads, if a meat dish - it is desirable that this is not a fat cutlet, but a piece of boiled beef and vegetables. Kefir or yogurt is also very useful, since the sour-milk bacteria that are contained in the product take care of the microflora of the stomach and comfortable bowel cleansing.
Dinner should be as light as possible and at the same time hearty enough, only this way the dream will be strong, and in the morning there will be a good mood. However, do not forget that if you drink low-fat kefir after a difficult working day, it is possible that you will want to eat something more nutritious, and then it will be very difficult to refuse a sandwich with sausage. Ideally, the selected product should be digested for about 2-3 hours, so heavy foods such as pork, sausages and canned meat should be avoided.
What should be the dinner during the diet
Late dinner on a diet should be low-calorie, a maximum of 350 kcal. This, of course, cannot be a piece of white bread and sausage.
Do you have such a regime that you have a late dinner every night? What to eat to lose weight? So that the weight does not grow, it is desirable that the evening meal consisted mainly of easily digestible proteins. The best option for an evening meal can be:
- cottage cheese;
- yogurt;
- kefir with cereals.
As for fruits - an unequivocal answer to the question whether they can be eaten before bedtime or not does not exist. So, some nutritionists assure that sweet fruits are essential fiber for the body, while others that it is fructose and carbohydrates, which in the evening can provoke the appearance of fatty deposits.
The serving size of a diet dinner should be no more than 250 g, that is, placed in a glass. Naturally, the meal should be completed 3 hours before the planned sleep so that the food can be completely digested and does not cause a feeling of heaviness in the stomach.
If ordinary cottage cheese or boiled fish does not suit you, you can cook, for example:
- pumpkin stew;
- stewed chicken with mushrooms;
- light chicken salad with cucumbers;
- It is not forbidden to drink tea, cocoa or coffee - the main thing is that sugar or other sweeteners are not added to them.
After dinner
Often, workouts end after six, as fitness or gymnasiums are mostly visited by people after work. If the goal of the training is to lose weight, it is advisable to eat nothing for two hours after exercise, since the body uses body fat to restore strength.
And so that in the evening a strong feeling of hunger does not appear, it is best to have a bite to eat before meals (a meal should take place in 1.5 hours). It is advisable that these are sources of carbohydrates:
- fruits with cottage cheese;
- porridge with a small amount of vegetable oil;
- fruit and vegetable salads;
- whole grain cookies or bread rolls.
It is better not to eat heavy products like meat cutlets or a sandwich with sausage, as the heaviness caused by them in the stomach will significantly reduce the effectiveness of the workout. In addition, you should refrain from cakes and other high-calorie baking.
After arriving home, after two hours, you should have a little snack. However, late dinner after training should be very light. So, you can eat a dairy product - cottage cheese, yogurt or kefir - but always low-calorie. Going to bed with hunger is not recommended, otherwise the sleep will be restless and the body will not have time to recover.
Dinner depends on the type of workout.
It happens that women, trying to lose weight, train hard, but still do not achieve what they want. Why is this happening? First you need to accurately determine the purpose of physical activity. After all, there are those that contribute to the growth of muscle mass, and there are those that are aimed only at losing weight.
The role of dinner for the first is of fundamental importance, because if it is necessary to build muscle, it is best to eat food in the first 20 minutes after leaving the room, and this should be protein products (eggs, meat, cottage cheese). When nutrition takes place in this way, a sharp decrease in weight cannot be observed, since the fat mass will be replaced by muscles that are much heavier.
If training is aimed exclusively at losing weight and dinner consists exclusively of vegetables and low-fat dairy or meat products, weight loss will not take long.
Should I skip dinner
Most women in pursuit of a beautiful figure prefer not to eat at all. Instead of dinner, they can drink tea or, at worst, kefir. Is such a substitute for dinner useful and what happens when the body goes hungry?
Scientists argue that the cancellation of dinner in principle is not so scary, the main thing is that the interval between meals should not be more than 12 hours. If breakfast after the last meal occurs in 13-14 hours, the metabolism will slow down and in addition, digestion problems may occur.
Losing weight should remember that harm from dinner can only be if a person eats a lot of high-calorie foods, if 100 g of low-fat cottage cheese is eaten, it will only bring benefits to the body.
Late dinner: is it really so harmful?
Whether a person is on a diet or not, he should remember that there may be great harm from a late dinner. This happens when he becomes very plentiful and satisfying, for example, after an evening feast. True, if it ended three hours before going to bed, nothing bad would happen.
But in the case when you immediately fell asleep after this meal, all processes in the body will slow down, including digestion. As a result, food lingers in the stomach, stretching it. Moreover, nutrients will also remain in it, and decay products will enter the bloodstream, poisoning the body. As a result, the next morning a person will feel bad, even signs of poisoning are possible.
It should be remembered that in the evening the hormone insulin is especially active, so everything that is eaten before bedtime turns into fat, and this is not only a threat of excess weight, but also the possibility of problems with the cardiovascular and endocrine systems.
Basic rules for a late dinner
To feel great and look good, an evening meal should be carried out according to the following rules:
- Eat should be no later than three hours before bedtime.
- After eating, do not rush to immediately lie down on the sofa, as for the full assimilation of food you need light physical activity.
- From the table you need to get up a little hungry.
- Serving should be no more than a glass.
- Dinner should be light, so it’s better to make a hearty meal.
What to do if it’s time for dinner, but don’t want to eat
This usually happens when dinner was too hearty or the person simply ate more than was required. With three meals a day, dinner should account for 25% of the daily amount of food, for breakfast - 35%, for lunch - 40%. In any case, so that later you do not suffer from hunger during sleep, you should make yourself a low-calorie smoothie.
It can be made from fermented milk products, vegetables and fruits using a blender. So, you can combine cottage cheese, milk and apricots or banana, strawberries and cottage cheese. In order to make the cocktail lighter and cooler, which is important during the heat, you can add ice to it.
How not to eat at night
Many at night are worried by a feeling of hunger, and even after dinner, a hand reaches for the refrigerator. In such cases, it is best to drink any herbal tea with lemon, preferably hot, as it creates the illusion of satiety.
The hot bath, which can relax so much that you immediately want to sleep, distracts you from thoughts about food. Brushing your teeth at night with toothpaste with mint also helps.