243. Should I Eat After 7 PM? Let's Break It Down

Andrea tackles a long-standing myth about eating after 7 PM and why it’s not as straightforward as many think. Drawing from her experience coaching thousands of women, she breaks down the pros and cons of eating later in the evening, from post-workout recovery to emotional eating and metabolism. With a focus on individual needs, daily routines, and the importance of listening to your body, Andrea offers a thoughtful and realistic perspective on when—and why—late-night eating might actually support your goals.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Well, it's officially summertime. That means the sun is out longer. Our kids are out of school. We're typically staying awake a little bit later, which also means that we might be eating our foods a little bit later in the evening as well. I had a client this week ask me, and more so she was saying, you know, I've heard the advice that you should not eat food after 7 p.m. for years and years, and she asked what my opinion on that is. So I'm going to give you my very clear-cut opinion, and that is... It depends on your situation. I'm gonna break it all down. I promise I'll make it make sense, but I don't think this is a solid blanket response that we should be telling everybody. So I'm gonna give you the details today of things to be aware of and make sure that you're doing what's right for you based on my experience of coaching literally thousands of women and helping them be aware of their needs. And before we get into today's episode, I do wanna point out if your goal is losing fat or gaining muscle or even maintaining, Adding an EAA, which is an essential amino acid supplement, to your routine is going to be very helpful. I did talk about an EAA last week in the podcast, so if you want to jump back and learn a little bit more about that. But they are amazing for helping protect muscle from being broken down if you're in a calorie deficit. They're amazing for helping protecting muscle from being broken down if you're injured or you're not moving as much because that muscle starts to atrophy. It's also very effective for building building muscle and having protein synthesis and fueling that process because it gives you the amino acids you need to actually build muscle. So it's a perfect supplement to add in, especially if you do not feel like your protein intake is on par. And I know in the summertime, we're go, go, go. And especially while we're traveling, it's hard to get your protein intake in. So that's also why this is a supplement that I continue to take because it helps support my protein and it helps support building muscle. The best news is you can use my link and get 20% off and you can either do a one-time purchase and that's going to give you the 10% off or if you do a subscription for every month, it's going to give you that 20% off. You don't even have to do every month. You could do every other. They have a couple options every two months. But you go to GetKion, that's K-I-O-N dot com slash simple. Again, GetKion, K-I-O-N dot com slash simple to help support and maintain the muscle you have and are trying to build. My name's Andrea Allen, and I am a mother of four girls under seven, a wifey to a mountain man, a personal trainer, and a nutrition coach. I love all things women's health and fitness, but let's face it, the fitness industry is complicated, and it's not built for the everyday mom. There's so much conflicting information, and you're busy, and you don't have time to figure it out. I hate feeling confused and overwhelmed, so I have made it my mission to simplify health and fitness while creating a welcoming, realistic, and empowering home for like-minded women. I'm happy you're here. And I hope you stay a while. So first of all, I do want to say that it is a myth that food eaten after 6 p.m., 7 p.m., whatever time you choose, is turning to fat. That's not how the body works. That is a myth that food just turns to fat. Your body all of a sudden at 7 p.m. doesn't say, oh my gosh, it's 7 p.m., let's switch our digestive modes. Everything is now fat. It just doesn't work that way. Like, our bodies are smarter than that. So it's really important to focus more about the overall daily intake than the exact time you're eating. But I do think the time you're eating does play a role, which is what I'm going to explain today. So we're going to talk about the pros and cons of eating after seven when you should and when you shouldn't. So here are the pros. If you are someone who works out at night, you need to eat food after your workout. This is actually very important for building muscle. After your workout, your muscles are broken down. They need building blocks to help create that protein synthesis. So if you're someone who trains in the evening, then this advice isn't actually great for you because you're actually slowing your process of building muscle, which is slowing down your ability to speed up your metabolism. So if you're in a situation where you need to train at night, because not everyone can train in the morning, and the last thing I want is someone to say, well, just because I train at night, I can't have a post-workout meal because that's incorrect. So if you work out in the evening, after you work out, you need to still have something with protein and or carbs in it. It doesn't matter if it's past seven. This is a post-workout meal because you need those supplies to be able to repair the muscle and to help with the growth hormone activity, which is going to happen during deep sleep. sleep that evening if you go to bed with nothing in your tank after you worked out you've got no building blocks to push you towards your goals so you do need to eat something there i'm not saying you need to eat a heavy big meal but a post-workout meal isn't that big it's literally maybe a protein shake and a simple carb it's not massive it's more of a snack so you do need to be eating something there i don't want you to skip not eating simply because you've heard that rule if Again, you need food after your workout. That is a pro. That is when you do need the food. My second pro for people who should possibly be eating later in the evening is if you are someone who is incredibly busy during the day. So oftentimes when I'd work with clients, they would be, you know, emergency room nurses or have a job where they're on the go. And during the day, they're like eating little bits of bars in their pockets and all kinds of things. Oftentimes these clients would come to me and say, well, you know, I finally got off work. I worked a seven to seven shift. They barely ate anything during the day. And then they feel like, well, I can't eat anything now because I'm outside of the window. You're not supposed to eat after seven, quote unquote. That's the rule we hear. This is not helpful in those situations. Yes, obviously we don't wanna be having massive meals later in the evening, but you have to remember that you have to have enough food to fuel your total daily energy expenditure. So even if you're trying to lose weight, if you are consistently incredibly busy during the day, and this isn't even just for people with busy jobs like that. I've seen this happen to moms where they have a solid breakfast and then all of a sudden they start running errands and then they've got soccer practice and all these activities later and they don't get a lot of food in the middle of the day and then it becomes late and they feel like they can't eat. And I encourage them, no, I would rather have you have dinner because what happens in both of those situations is if you are consistently assuming that you can't eat any food past 7 p.m. but you're not eating enough food during the day, then what's happening is you're going to slow down your metabolism because of metabolic adaptation. When someone is consistently under eating like that, and it doesn't even have to be a restriction on purpose But as I've talked about, metabolic adaptation slows down the metabolism. And then in my case, when I'm coaching someone, I have to reverse diet them where I have to slowly increase their food intake. Also, if you are not eating enough food and your goal is putting on muscle, you're not going to see those changes no matter how hard your workout is if you don't have the building blocks. So if you are in a situation where you are busy all day, where you have a job where you can't eat very much, then it's not logical sound advice for that That rule of not being able to eat after 7 p.m. to actually work for you because you haven't had enough calories during the day. You don't want to be under eating on a regular basis and fall into calorie restriction that is too deep. So you do want to eat, even if it's 7 p.m., you do want to eat dinner at that point to make sure that your body is getting enough food. If you are drastically under the food intake that you need based on your activity and your workout, no matter what time you eat, your body is gonna utilize that food because it needs it because it's gotta stay above your basal metabolic rate. That is the rate at which you burn food, basically the rate at which you use food if you were laying on your bed and doing nothing, just blinking your eyes, your heart working, your lungs pumping, all of those things. So for those people, I don't think it's incredibly sound advice is to say don't eat after seven because they may be in a situation where during the day they could only eat maybe a thousand calories and now it's 7 p.m. and they're scared to eat. That's going to hurt their metabolism and their goals for building muscle, which helps with fat loss in the long run. So I would encourage those people to have still a meal when they get off work because that's when you have to let the logic of eating enough food outweigh just the time restriction. The second piece to this is if you are in a situation where you are busy all day or you have a job like that, if you then try to avoid food in the evening, it can also very commonly lead to binging later, yo-yo dieting, or even after like two or three days of that, just overdoing your food intake because your body doesn't have the supplies it needs to literally do its basic activities for that basal metabolic rate. And when you're not eating enough food, your body is smart and its job is to protect itself. So it will actually start... which means breaking down your muscle to use as energy. So all of those are an example of when you need to let your total food amount outweigh the amount time of day you are eating it. Obviously, you don't want to eat these massive meals, but you want to eat something because you need to get a little bit more food intake. And then if you are eating later in the day, obviously, you need to have some awareness of your proteins, fats, and carbs and trying to make that meal balanced and not overly heavy in just carbs or just fat. One last thing to think about when we're talking about if you are busy during the day or just aren't eating a ton during the day and then eating later at night is if this is a behavior you can change because sometimes it just takes a a little bit of planning. Sometimes if you're someone who is stuck running errands all day, it takes packing some snacks and some other things so that you're getting more food in earlier in the day. That can be helpful. So it's not always just saying, well, I can't eat during the day, but trying to adjust where you can and make the situation better. If you can, food prep some food to bring it with you. But as I mentioned, there are some situations where that's not an option. There are some jobs where that's not an option. And that's where you have to think critically if you still should be coming home And having some food so you're not under eating. But if you are in a situation where you're just not adjusting your habits, so you're not eating a ton during the day and then you're heavy loading your food at night, that's not beneficial. So you will want to think through how can I meal prep or how can I get food in earlier during the day. So just think through your personal situation when making that choice. Like I mentioned that late in the night, if there's not enough building supplies, your body actually breaks down muscle. So when we have something later in the evening, if our goal is building muscle, it actually prevents that from happening. So if later in the evening, if you're feeling hungry and you have a protein-rich meal or snack, then it can help reduce that muscle breakdown by providing amino acids overnight. So if your goal is building muscle in the evening, you might want to have something that is a slow digestion protein like casein and an example of casein is cottage cheese that's something that's going to be great night so sometimes you'll see people where they have their protein treat at night that can be very effective for building muscle and they're probably not having that before seven o'clock they could be having that at seven eight o'clock but it is a very highly rich protein item that is just going to kind of help them repair their muscles overnight so that can be very effective The last thing I want you to think about when it comes to if you should be eating after 7 p.m. is your relationship with food. If you have a very unhealthy relationship with food and you have really intense food rules, whether you are hungry past 7 o'clock or not, it can make you feel guilt and shame, and I wouldn't follow this rule. I would work on fixing your relationship with food before I focused on really strict diet rules about when you should eat and shouldn't eat. The number one thing that I have to fix before I can get someone to make progress with actually longevity and long-term results when it comes to a client is I have to improve their relationship with food. If you do not improve your relationship with food, whatever success you have will be short-lived because you don't see food as fuel. You see it as the enemy. And until I can break that mindset with someone, they will continue to spin their wheels. So if you are someone who feels that way, I think that you shouldn't have that rule. I think you should really focus on seeing food as and paying attention to how you're feeling on the inside. So long story short, eating after 7 p.m. is not inherently bad. It's just depending on your situation and what you need and also being aware of doing it mindfully, like I suggested with the higher protein snack in the evening and how that can help with muscle repair in the night. It really does matter more about your total daily intake, how much food you're eating throughout the day, and your nutrient quality food and your meal composition of your proteins, fats, and carbs more than just the time alone, more than just 7 p.m. 7.01, things aren't going downhill, okay? So you got to remember that. Okay, now let's talk about the cons of eating past 7 p.m. because there is definitely some truth to this statement. But as I said, whether you should or shouldn't do it depends on your situation. So it's common that later in the evening, people tend to eat in excess of calories. They've already met their total daily energy expenditure. That's the amount of food they need to just maintain all the things that they're moving during the day. They've already hit that food intake. And then later in the night, they're just snacking out of habit. This is a type of situation where you wouldn't want to eat in the evening. If you are eating enough all day long and you are just eating at night out of habit, not out of need for your body, then yeah, you might not want to be eating after 7 p.m. because you might just be doing it out of habit. Secondly, not only are people doing it out of habit, they mindlessly snack more often because this tends to be when people are watching shows or some people are playing games or whatever it is and they're not paying attention to the amount of food going in their body because they're doing something to relax at the same time and it causes you to eat even more food because you're not aware of what's going on. Not only do we tend to be at higher risk for overeating in the evening, we are also at a higher risk of emotional eating in the evening. So I think sometimes thinking about our coping skills, thinking about why we're doing things is really important as well, because we know that food is a coping skill. So if you emotionally eat, chances are you are more likely to do it in the evening and not have control over that. So it's important to think that through and think about what other coping skills we can have and not just lean into food, especially in the evening if we've already eaten. enough food for our needs during the day. Now, while having small snacks and balanced meals later in the evening, especially for building muscle, can be beneficial and it can even help people with muscle repair in the evening. On the flip side, if we are having very large, heavy meals that are really high in fats or really spicy late at night, that actually disrupts our digestion and makes our quality of sleep worse. So this causes your body to basically be in digestive mode instead of restorative mode for you to sleep. So that is when eating later in the night is not beneficial. If you're eating these massive meals super late, you might not sleep as well, which is going to affect your ability to put on muscle to feel good the next day to work out and to do some of those things the next day. Digesting a lot of food really late at night can also elevate your cortisol hormone, which is your stress hormone. So it's also important to think about if you're having really big meals on a regular basis late at night that that can be stressful on your body if your situation is one where you don't need to be eating a meal in the evening when it's later. There's also some research that eating really big meals or really late in the evening can hinder your circadian rhythms. So your circadian rhythm is what wakes you up in the morning and helps you fall asleep at night. And typically when it wakes you up in the morning, that is when our insulin sensitivity is most optimized. It expects for food earlier in the day and it kind of starts to slow down with the melatonin at night. So it's important to think through some of those things when you're deciding if you should be eating in the night or if you don't really need to and you're doing it out of habit. The last thing to consider if you should be eating later in the evening or not is when is your bedtime? For example, if someone's bedtime is at midnight or even 11 p.m., depending on the scenario, then a later meal for them is going to look very different than for someone whose bedtime is 9 p.m. So it's all really relative to your routine. I remember I had a friend who worked shift hours and she wasn't able to come home from work until 1 a.m. and go to bed, but she tried to follow this rule of not eating past 7. And I explained to her that 7 p.m. was not late considering what her typical routine was, that she couldn't go to bed until 1 a.m. So technically, a meal at 10 or 11 was actually kind of normal because she didn't go to bed until later. Obviously, we want normal sleeping windows, but that's not the scenario for everyone independent If you have kids who are awake or you're in different situations with jobs, it's important to take into account when you go to sleep and how long it's been since you ate earlier because sometimes people might eat dinner at 5.30 and then if they don't go to bed till 11, they might get hungry in the night instead of just having like a higher protein snack or a light balanced meal that can be beneficial before they go to sleep for muscle growth. They try to avoid it and then they end up binging or having something they shouldn't just because they're hungry because it's been so long. such a long gap since they actually ate because their bedtime is later. So this is where you have to logically think through your life. If you are in a situation where you can move your bedtime forward and then you can move your dinner forward, that's always going to be probably the best choice. But if you have a job or situation where that's not possible and you are not able to go to bed until extremely late and you really can't change that, thinking through when you eat your last meal is going to make a difference because if you're not going to bed till really late and you cannot change that, there's no behavioral change. There's nothing you can do based on your circumstances, then eating a little bit later of a meal is going to be fine because there's still going to be a couple hours before you go to bed. So there you have it. Should you be eating past 7 p.m.?

UNKNOWN: 0:00

?

SPEAKER_00: 19:05

It depends on you. It depends on your situation. If you're training late, if you're busy during the day, what time your bedtime is, all of those things play a role. And it's important to be aware of our own situations to decide whether we should follow, quote unquote, fitness rules or whether they don't make sense for us. Because the truth is, most things aren't black and white. There's a lot of gray. And when we understand the gray and we apply some of these rules, again, quote unquote, it helps us understand if they're useful or not, because in some circumstances they can be, and in other circumstances they're not, and they can actually cause a lot of problems. So you're going to have to decide for you if eating past 7 p.m. is a good idea or a bad idea. All right, that's it for today. As always, you're doing so much better than you think you are. We'll chat next week.