Dinner is the last meal of the day before your body prepares for sleep. Keep it simple and easy to digest. In the colder months, I prefer having something like a warm vegetable soup, and in the warmer months, I prefer lots of salads.
Many eat their largest meal of the day in the evening. However, this puts massive pressure on your digestive system and prevents your body from having the time and energy for healing, repairing and restoring. This is why I’m not into heavy dinners.
When we sleep, our bodies finally get a chance to heal themselves. All weight-loss and skin repair happens while we are asleep, not at the gym or doing a facial mask. Sleep is the time when all that hard work integrates and actually shows up on our bodies and faces.
Digestion is the most energy exhaustive activity our body does. Up to 80 percent of our daily energy expenditure goes towards digestion. When we eat a big, heavy meal, our body's energy goes towards breaking that meal down for the next 4-6 hours (which is the amount of time it takes to digest your average meal). That means your body isn't focused on healing and repairing—it's just trying to digest the meal you just consumed.
Research says eating at night can lead to weight gain, even if you don't eat excess calories. Researchers claim that eating at night can interfere with the body's circadian rhythms.
Insulin, the hormone responsible for getting the sugar in your blood to your body's cells for fuel, runs along with your circadian clock. So at night (when your body thinks you should be asleep and fasting), your body's cells become more resistant to the hormone. This means eating large dinners or eating late can cause high blood-sugar levels and, over time, fat accumulation, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Moreover, eating right before bed disrupts your sleep cycle and makes you further crave sugar and unhealthy fats the next day because you haven't properly rested.
After a bad night's sleep, the body's levels of appetite-triggering hormones increase, while hormones that curb hunger drop. Peoples bodies become resistant to insulin's effects, raising the risk of fat accumulation, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Late-night eating also causes digestive issues. When our stomachs are full and we lie down, the acidic contents of our stomach go up the esophagus, causing acid reflux. They’re also not digested thoroughly and can cause bloating and water retention.
On top of that, most late-night eating isn't the healthiest of choices. We tend to gravitate towards unhealthy packaged food, often because we're too exhausted to make a healthy meal from scratch. This is why it's important to prepare your dinner earlier so you're satisfied and don't gravitate towards the snack pantry when the clock hits ten.
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