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How late you eat doesn't matter as much as what you eat

Woman Eating Noodles
It's better to eat something late in the evening than not eat at all. Chubykin Arkady / Shutterstock

The INSIDER Summary:

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  • As long as you're staying within your daily calorie requirement, eating late is not bad for you; it just might interfere with your digestion.
  • It's best to avoid excessive snacking at night, though.
  • It's also better to eat dinner late than not eat at all; skipping a meal might lead to overeating in the morning.


Just like your mother probably told you to always eat your vegetables, chances are she also warned you never to eat late at night.

Turns out there's a little more to that warning, though.

According to nutritionist Dr. Lisa Young, it's not so much about how late you're eating, it's more about what and how much you're eating.

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Don't go overboard

There's a difference between eating a grilled chicken salad at 9pm because you had to work late and consuming two bowls of ice cream after dinner because you were craving something sweet.

Man eating Popcorn in front of TV
Try to avoid excessive snacking at night. baranq / Shutterstock

Young says the most important thing to keep in mind when eating late at night is your daily calorie requirement. If you've already consumed your usual amount of calories for the day and then you give in to the urge to start snacking in the late evening, that can lead to weight gain — if you're doing it regularly.

You're better off eating dinner late than not eating dinner at all.

If life gets in the way and you end up not being able to eat dinner until later, Young says it's still better to eat something healthy and nutritious than to skip dinner altogether. That's because skipping dinner will most likely lead to you waking up in the morning ravenous, at which point you'll probably go crazy at breakfast and justify it with the fact that you didn't have dinner the night before.

That said, Young says if you can eat dinner earlier, you should. Eating dinner at say, 7pm instead of 9pm gives your body more time to digest, whereas going to bed on a full stomach can often interfere with digestion.

Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2017.

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