Image by: Alana Sise
By Kurt Garrity

Put down the pizza and diet soda – it’s 2 a.m.! That late-night snack or meal, while satisfying and delicious, is destroying your body and keeping you up longer than you would like. Bad health, loss of sleep and weight gain will all result from late-night food consumption.

But you work out! That doesn’t matter as research shows that if you eat late at night, you are fighting your body’s natural clock system and weight gain will surely result. And why would you ever fight your body? It is your temple.

The Boy’s Got Rhythm

Even if you eat something that is listed as diet or low in calories, you can still be doing damage. It has something to do with the body’s circadian rhythms, which are disrupted when we eat at night. It’s more about the time than the food, although steamed green beans are definitely better than two slices of chocolate cake.

There is also research that shows that night eating is bad for the arteries.

No Spicy Foods

Spicy food before going to bed is a horrible idea. A stinking, gurgling disaster of an idea. Besides the indigestion possibilities and other unmentionables, spicy food gives the body an endorphin rush when consumed, which will keep you up longer than intended.

You may also be evicted from the bed.

Artificial Ingredients

Try to skip processed foods that are labelled as “low fat” or “low calorie” as they likely contain the kind of non-digestible science-as-food that the body hates. Instead, if you must eat, go for natural, healthy foods from the earth, not from a box or boil-in-bag.

Plus, when you consume artificially sweetened items, you increase your chance of the body absorbing chlorine which is found in sweeteners. Yeah, chlorine, like what’s in the pool. Nice dreams.

The Bottom Line

Try to eat everything before 7 p.m. at night. By doing so, you let your body have the proper amount of time to digest your day’s food intake, keep your body rhythms in check and have a fighting chance at minimizing weight gain.