Eating Carbs Before Bed = More Body Fat?

Here’s a short science lesson (it’ll be quick, I promise!).

Carbohydrates = gives us energy.
Energy = gives us the ability to function.
Too much energy = stored as glucose in cells and in fat cells if not used sufficiently

Ok, now that we got that out of the way, let’s jump right into it.

Plain and simple, it doesn’t matter when you eat your carbohydrates, whether it’s before bed, after waking up, in the middle of the day. Meal timing can be important when fine tuning your results, but eating carbs before bed will not make you fat (under most circumstances).

‘BUT MARIE, eating carbs before bed means that I’ll have all this energy that won’t be used! It’ll just turn to fat!’. I mean, you’re somewhat right but let me explain. It takes more time than eight hours of sleep to turn unused energy into fat. It’ll be stored as energy until it’s used and if ultimately, it isn’t, then it’ll be stored as fat. The main point to take away here is that, consuming large amounts of carbs, fats and proteins, i.e. consuming more food than you burn off over a period of time can most definitely lead to weight gain.

So you eat your sandwich before bed. You’re not gaining weight. Great! However, Bobby eats a sandwich before bed. He notices he’s getting a bit chubby. He stops eating the sandwich before bed and instead eats a salad. He magically starts losing weight! He comes to you and says ‘Hey, you have to try this! Stop eating carbs before bed and instead eat a salad, you’ll lose weight in no time!’. You weren’t really worried about gaining weight (maybe a bit offended because you don’t know if Bobby was calling you fat) because you’ve stayed the same weight for some time now, even while eating a sandwich before bed!

Why Both Methods Work

1. Bobby’s cutting a substantial amount of calories by replacing the sandwich with a salad (assuming he’s not loading the salad with tons of calorie dense toppings). He could also simply be eating less throughout his day or be making more calorie conscious decisions but the one ‘hack’ that worked was, in fact, reducing carbs before bed.
2. Vegetables are carbs. So he’s not really replacing carbs at all he’s just reducing his carb and therefore, calorie intake.
3. You’ve been the same weight, even while eating a sandwich before bed because the amount of energy you exert during your day-to-day life is most likely balanced with the amount of calories you consume.

Now if we want to get into macronutrient balance for optimal results it’ll be a whole different ballpark. This would include meal timing ‘hacks’, such consuming protein and carbs after a workout to maximize muscle gain and eating carbs before a workout in order to perform to the best of your ability. Add fasting on top of that and we have a whole other layer of details to pay attention to. But for now, we’ll keep it simple.

Marie.