The old saying goes, “Breakfast for a king, lunch for a prince, dinner for pauper.” But do you need to eat less at night (i.e., after 6pm)? The simple answer is no, you don’t. Just make sure you don’t overeat. Over consumption of carbohydrate or any food late in the day is the likely cause of weight gain related to nighttime eating.

It’s hard to find any conclusive metabolic evidence that food eaten at night is more likely to be stored as body fat. Metabolism drops when you are sleeping, but that simply lowers your daily energy expenditure and its 24 hour energy balance (energy in versus energy out) that really matters for weight gain or loss.

Eat for Appetite Management

Eating five or six meals a day may assist with appetite management by maintaining satiety between main meals. This means you’ll be less likely to overeat at meals. If you are active and have large energy requirements, you’ll also need to spread your food intake over the day.

However, for some people, eating every three hours may have a negative impact on weight management. This can be the case when an individual has poor appetite management and too many snacks between meals. They may be better suited to avoiding food triggers between main meals, especially if they are not very active and don’t need to fuel up so often in the day.

Stay Under Your “Calorie Cap”

The choice of how much you eat at night can best be made based on how well you have eaten up until dinner time. If you are well below your normal calorie intake at dinner time, you can afford to be more flexible and eat more at night. If you have blown your daily calorie budget by lunch with a double cheeseburger and soft drink, you’ll need to limit anything you eat later in the day to minimize excess calories and potential body fat gain.

Getting Practical

Even though food eaten at night is not more likely to end up stored as body fat, especially when you are within your daily calorie allowance. Even so, we still need to consider the reasons why people often eat too much at night and counter these with some targeted practical advice.

Lack of planning - If you don’t eat enough during the day, you risk greater hunger at night. If you skip breakfast, are too busy for lunch or forget to snack, you leave yourself open to overeating in the evening. By planning your food for the day and taking time out to eat regularly, you can satisfy your fuel needs and avoid overfilling late in the day.

Eating habits - Habits are powerful behavioral patterns that allow us to perform many of our daily tasks without conscious effort. Showering, dressing and teeth cleaning are good habits that, for most of us, happen on autopilot. Unfortunately, overeating at night also occurs on autopilot, and the habit needs to be broken. Try serving the evening meal on a smaller plate or taking leftovers off the stove and placing them in the fridge immediately. These new habits will put the brakes on dinnertime feasting.

Social pressure - Your diet may stay on track until you come home to sit down at the table with other people. You may feel obliged to eat everything that’s served by your caring partner, mother or friend. You can also simply overeat over long social meals. To manage this feeding pressure, make your diet plans known to those at home. Recruiting their support to serve less or change what you eat at dinner will work in your favor. And as for the belief that you should clean your plate, learn a new mantra: “It’s better to go in the waste than around my waist!”

Emotional escape - After a stressful day, food can sooth and relax. Chocolate, ice cream, cake and chips work well at delivering instant relief. Eating is also an effective short term strategy to beat nighttime boredom. Helping clients identify an evening stress or “boredom food” link is the first step. Alternative emotional rewards or stimulation then need to be established. Ask the question, “What can you do in the evening that would reduce the need to eat?”

from  http://www.ptonthenet.com/