By adopting healthy eating habits, maintaining a regular meal schedule, and being mindful of your choices, you can support your overall health and well-being.
Often, we are advised to have an early dinner so that the body gets enough time to digest the food. But there is more than one benefit of eating at least two hours prior to bedtime — turns out that late-night snacking can not only disrupt digestion but also dysregulate the hunger hormones, making you feel hungrier and, thereby, inducing overeating and potential weight gain. Throwing light on the same, Dr Uma Naidoo, a nutritional psychiatrist, shared, “While the foods we eat can have a huge influence on the way we feel, our habits surrounding food are also important to be mindful of. It has long been suggested that late night eating, or eating close to bedtime, has negative health implications”.
In an Instagram post, she added, “A recent randomised, controlled, crossover trial found that individuals whose largest meals are consumed later in the day have lower serum leptin levels(the hormone that tells us we are full) and higher ghrelin (the hormone that makes us feel hungry): leptin ratio compared to those who ate earlier in the day. This means people may feel hungrier and be less inclined to stop eating when full”.
