How Late Is TOO Late - Are You Becoming Sick and Fat As You Sleep?

Does it matter when we eat or what we eat? Unfortunately, for those of us who love food, the answer is yes! Food that is consumed at night is not processed as efficiently as it is during the day. What happens in our life after dinner? We wind down; we prepare to end our day. That is what we should be doing the last hour or two of our day... preparing for sleep. What is the purpose of sleep? Sleep is when we recharge and when our bodies repair. Our bodies need all their resources for this task. If it has to work on digesting food, because that would be a priority for the body if there is food present in the digestive system, then very little repair happens.

It is not uncommon to have disrupted sleep when we go to bed after eating a large or hard to digest meal too close to bedtime. This is because the body is working hard to digest what was eaten recently. Meat takes longer than any other foods to digest. For good health avoiding eating meat late at night, as it tends to stay in the digestive tract longer than grains, fruits, or vegetables. If we are using the body's energy to digest food during the night we are not giving the body that precious cleaning time that it needs to help fight off disease, as well as help repair and rejuvenate us.

Eating a large meal before bed has been associated with obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and higher than healthy blood sugar levels. What happens is our bodies, which are hard wired for survival, think that gosh, "With all this food in my stomach, I am probably not going to get food for a long time so I better stock up". Our body thinks it needs to store as much of the calories from that large meal in the form of fat for later use.

My recommendations... try to eat dinner by 6pm or at least 3 hours before bedtime and avoiding eating large quantities of harder to digest foods like meat and heavily processed foods at night. Liberally use seasoning such as cayenne, garlic, cinnamon, black pepper, mustard seeds, and ginger as they speed up metabolism. Swap whole grains, fruits, and vegetables for white sugar, processes foods, and white flour products. Ayurveda medicine suggests that people should go for a brisk walk after dinner, even just 5 to 10 minutes. If you are a late night "snacker" brush your teeth earlier than right before bed. Most people do not like the taste of food right after brushing. Plus, you might want to keep your teeth clean till bedtime thus opting out of the snack!

Dr. Tina is a Traditional Naturopath and Nutritionist at the Vibrant Living Wellness Center

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