FoodQuestion to an expert: Is it true that eating after six is ​​harmful?

Why can you eat after 18.00?

Anyone who wants to lose weight must monitor their meal times and diet. If you eat in the evening, fat will not be deposited. However, if you are on a diet, do not go more than 10 hours between meals.

The body stores food “in reserve” to save energy. During your next meal, hormones will be released, which will force you to eat more than you need. You definitely won't be able to lose weight this way.

Metabolism slows down during sleep, but does not stop completely. The food in the stomach is still digested. At the same time, physical activity decreases in the evening. The body has nowhere to use the amount of energy from eating a large amount of food. Therefore, it does not matter what time you have dinner - before 6 pm or after. If you don't eat well and don't move during the day, you won't be able to lose weight.

How much does this help?

How much weight you can lose if you don’t eat after six in the evening will depend on your daily routine, which should include a place for health-improving procedures and activities. You need to pay attention to the standard recommendations to achieve a good figure:

1. The transition to foods with moderate and low calorie content should be permanent. It makes no sense to use products that fit these parameters for a month, and then return to your eating habits again. In this case, everything that you managed to get rid of over the previous month will come back a hundredfold, taking with you a couple of extra kilograms.
2. You cannot sharply limit the caloric content of your diet. The transition to healthy food should be gradual, then it will not cause a stressful situation, which on a psychological level makes you break down.
3. You need to reduce your usual portions. To begin with, you can cut the amount of food you consume by a third. This will not cause a sharp lack of food, but it will teach the stomach to be content with small amounts. This rule can be repeated several times.
4. You can lose weight if you don’t eat after 6 pm, but you still can’t limit your diet to two meals. It is necessary to divide food into several meals and have time to have dinner before this period. It is optimal to eat 5-6 times a day in small portions.
5. People who are accustomed to leading a nocturnal lifestyle will need to adapt, since they cannot simply shift their schedule. If you have to lead a nocturnal lifestyle, waking up around lunchtime and going to bed in the morning, food intake should not be shifted to later or at night.

You don’t have to give up junk food completely – until lunchtime it will have virtually no detrimental effect on your figure.

But in the evening it is better to give preference to various cereals, salads and fermented milk products.

Drinks containing alcohol relax and dull the sense of control; after their influence, you want to eat a lot of unhealthy and high-calorie foods. Because of this, it is better to abstain from them during the period of active weight loss, and then strictly dose them. However, tea and coffee drinks can also cause a craving to eat something tasty, so it is best not to drink them in the evening. After lunch time, it is best to use water or juices.

What to do to lose weight

When losing weight, it is necessary to maintain energy balance. Energy expenditure should exceed the number of calories consumed. If you are inactive during the day, try to consume most of your diet in the first half of the day.

To avoid gaining weight, eat dinner 3-4 hours before bed. And 1–1.5 hours before, make a small snack. During such a short-term use, try to eat only easily digestible foods and in small quantities.

Eating a heavy dinner before bed is not advisable. The body needs to process all the food you eat into energy, which you simply cannot spend. The likelihood of gaining excess weight will increase.

After 6 pm, it is better to eat lean protein and fiber foods. This way you definitely won't get fat. Protein and fiber speed up metabolism and burn fat. At the same time, the body does not lose water and muscle mass.

If you lead a sedentary lifestyle, a simple diet will not help you. To lose weight healthy, you need to eat right and exercise. During physical activity, the body uses stored fat as an energy source. Regular exercise increases muscle mass, which helps you burn more calories at rest. Sports combined with proper nutrition are a guarantee of weight loss.

Disadvantages of Skipping Dinner

If you constantly miss breakfast, you cannot refuse evening meals - this can provoke the development of diseases of the digestive system, as well as aggravate existing pathologies. Not eating after 6 pm will only work if you have a well-established eating regimen, when your diet includes balanced nutrition at other times. It is most useful if the daily amount of food is not limited to two standard meals, but is divided into several parts that can be consumed up to 6, making an interval of three hours.

Contraindications for removing evening food:

• Exhaustion of the body or anorexic conditions;
• Having serious depression;
• Pathologies of the thyroid gland;
• The period of gestation and lactation;
• Pathologies in the renal or hepatic system.

The “don’t eat after 6” diet is also not recommended for people suffering from various forms of diabetes. This happens due to the frequency of meals - if you have diabetes, it is not recommended to pause between meals for more than a couple or three hours. Also, if you have frequent constipation, you cannot remove evening food.

Be sure to read: Features of absolute and classic fasting for 10 days

Those who intensively engage in various sports should not eat after six in the evening. During intense training, the condition of the liver system is significantly affected when a gap forms in the accumulated glycogen deposits. When this pathology occurs, an irreversible condition such as fatty hepatosis develops.

Some experts oppose the “don’t eat after 6” system, citing the fact that nature does not provide for such a long break between meals. In some ways, this statement is logical, since when you go without food for a long time, the body begins to produce high doses of insulin, which, with prolonged exposure, causes diabetes. In addition, the juice produced by the stomach during a prolonged absence of food begins to negatively affect the surrounding tissues, causing erosion and ulceration.

This can be avoided if you do not have a full dinner in the evening, but have a light snack. Then the body will receive a small dose of nutrients, which will occupy the digestive system until the morning and give time and energy for recovery. However, such a snack should be a special food. It is best to use fermented milk products or light protein foods. An egg white, a glass of kefir or a protein bar would be optimal in this regard. Moreover, this should be a snack, so a small amount of the selected product will be enough.

What can you eat after six?

In order not to gain weight, you need to consume an amount of calories that does not exceed the daily requirement of the average person. On average, this is 1500–2500 calories. Of this, approximately 20–30% should come from dinner.

3–4 hours before bedtime

You need to take the preparation of the evening menu seriously. 3-4 hours before bedtime, you need to eat something that promotes rapid digestion of food, recovery after a working day and replenishment of fluid reserves.

For dinner, choose dishes and foods that contain more proteins and carbohydrates. Such food gives a feeling of fullness and is quickly digested. This means that extra pounds will not appear on your sides.

Proteins help maintain and increase muscle mass and also fill the blood with amino acids. Carbohydrates produce insulin and store glycogen in the muscles and liver. Glycogen sends satiety signals to the brain, so you won't want to overeat.

Many people think that on a diet it is necessary to completely give up fat. This is wrong. Fats are involved in the absorption of vitamins and minerals, which play an important role in a balanced diet.

Dishes suitable for dinner:

• vegetable salad;
• egg white omelette;
• fruits;
• low-fat cottage cheese;
• chicken, turkey or lean meat;
• Fish and seafood.

1–1.5 hours before bedtime

You should choose low-fat, light and low-calorie foods. At the same time, you should like the dish and give you a feeling of satiety and comfort. A diet full of restrictions and conventions quickly gets boring and inevitably leads to breakdown.

Why do you need a late snack:

• satisfies hunger before bedtime;
• helps you fall asleep quickly;
• activates metabolism.

The ideal option is low-fat yogurt or kefir with bran. This set of products will not allow you to gain weight, even if you eat it right before bed. Such a snack maintains the necessary level of glucose and other nutrients in the body. Just pour a few grams of bran with kefir, wait until they swell, and eat.

Foods you can eat as a snack before bed:

• dairy and fermented milk products;
• vegetables;
• berries;
• juice, green tea and low-calorie drinks.

If you don't eat after 6, how much weight can you lose?

It is impossible to say for sure, if you don’t eat after 6, how much weight you can lose in a week or a month. It depends on the individual characteristics of the body, the number of calories consumed daily, age and lifestyle. The older a person is, the slower his body gets rid of extra pounds.

Reviews and results from people indicate that the process of losing excess weight is noticeable within a week. By introducing small restrictions in the first week, you can lose 1-2 kg of excess weight. For obese people, this figure can be 5 kg or more.

A holistic approach to weight loss can produce more tangible results. The pounds will begin to fall off faster if you adhere to a more active lifestyle. For example, evening walks at a moderate pace will help distract you from the feeling of hunger before bed and increase your calorie expenditure. Some people who lose weight achieve impressive results; their weight loss can be 10–20 kg. But you shouldn’t be like those around you, each organism is individual.

Some people ask the question “How much weight can you lose in a month if you don’t eat after 5?” But such strict measures can cause breakdowns and even greater weight gain.

Perfect dinner

The perfect dinner follows a simple “plate rule.” Conditionally divide the dish into 4 parts: one for the side dish, the second for vegetables, the third for protein products and the remaining fourth for fruits. By following this rule, your body will receive all the essential nutrients.

An example of an ideal diet dinner:

• buckwheat grain;
• lean boiled poultry meat;
• vegetable salad;
• apple;
• a glass of water or a cup of green tea without sugar.

Table of foods you can eat in the evening

Don't believe myths about healthy eating. Use common sense. Even if you follow these rules, you will not be able to lose weight without exercise.

At the Mango fitness club you will learn to lead a healthy lifestyle and meet like-minded people. Sign up for fitness support - our instructors will create a personal training program for you and give you nutritional recommendations.