1) The simple reason why a late dinner is bad for you is because the later you eat your last meal of the day, the more you will store much of it as fat and thus put on weight. Nearer to bed time, our bodies are programmed to slow down and you do not need as much as energy. If you eat and go to sleep soon after without giving yiour body time to digest the food, it will be stored as fat.
2) Give at least a two-hour gap between eating your last meal of the day and going off to sleep. Do not eat high glycemic foods such as potatoes and white rice at dinner as these will spike your insulin levels. Insulin, a hormone, feeds your muscles by driving glucose into your cells. With a spike, your insulin levels will rise and fall rapidly which is good for a quick burst of energy, but not for a peaceful night’s sleep.
3) Do not also go to the other extreme of skipping dinner entirely hoping to lose weight. It doesn’t work that way unfortunately. It’s not good to starve your body of nutrients the whole night and if you are also the kind to skip breakfast, you can imagine the deorivation for your body. Eat lean protein and a vegetable salad for dinner and if you wiush to eat some fruit, choose high-fibre ones like green apples, pears and prunes.
4) It’s good to eat yoghurt at dinner, which is rich in calcium, and a handful of nuts, because your body continues to build and restore muscle tissue and bone while you sleep. Almonds are also good for your heart and will help reduce the ‘bad’ cholesterol.
5) Another reason not to eat close to your sleep time is that you will not feel hungry in the morning. You will wake up feeling full and will then tend to skip breakfast. The morning meal as we know is needed to speed up our metabolism to meet the challenges of the day. If you miss breakfast, you will tend to eat less healthy during the rest of the day and as a rsult feel more lethargic than those who eat breakfast.
(Information: Juliot Vinolia, dietician, iCareClinics, Dubai)
