What Happens When You Eat After 7:30 PM

Have you ever heard the line “If you eat past 6 it sticks?” Personally, I feel that’s a little unrealistic. Most people haven’t finished dinner by then.

Or how about “Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper?” There are many cute little isms like these often thrown around in the world of nutrition. Some of them are valid, some partially true, and some are completely unfounded.

But I want to talk about these two in particular.

Instead of 6:00 pm, I like to consider 7:30 pm as a good cut off time for eating at night. Because, after all, we’re working toward a healthy, sustainable lifestyle – not a restrictive 30-day diet.

The reason there’s truth to these two statements is due to our body’s internal circadian rhythm.

What are circadian rhythms?

Because of this, your body processes calories differently earlier in the day than it does later on. 

This system of internal clocks impacts our internal physiology, including our digestion, body temperature, blood pressure, hormone production, and immune activity.

As explained in a paper titled Overview of circadian rhythms, circadian rhythms are biological clocks governing regular changes in behavior and physiology.

Stop eating late at night

Most of our genes exhibit daily fluctuations in expression, making the circadian rhythm the largest known regulatory system in our bodies. This cycling is thought to allow for a level of predictability and functional division of labor so each of your body's processes can run at the best time.

At night while we’re sleeping, a whole array of internal activities can be switched on, such as clearing accumulated waste products from the brain, for example, and as dawn approaches, our bodies can shift back into activity mode.

So, instead of skipping breakfast and eating a moderately sized lunch followed by a big dinner and snacking until you go to bed, stick to the tried and true philosophy of breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

Your body uses food more effectively earlier in the day. When you begin your day with a solid breakfast, your body is able to use it as fuel throughout the day. But late at night, your body is getting ready to sleep. It doesn’t need an influx of calories.