Why late dinners are harmful to health and how to choose the best time to eat?

Dear reader, we present to you our beauty columnist Inessa Tsarkova!

Inessa is an active nutritionist, gastroenterologist, therapist, naturopath and aromatherapist, health coach, integrative medicine doctor with a holistic approach. And now he will share with us his knowledge in the field of both physical and mental health, nutrition and much more.

You may often hear advice from nutritionists and dietitians not to eat after 18:00. Let’s understand how it works and is it necessary to follow it?

Inessa Tsarkova

Our digestive system does more than just digest and absorb nutrients into the blood. It has another very important function – excretion. In addition, as an excretory organ, it plays a main role in purifying our body from water- and fat-soluble toxins and metabolic products.

Did you know that excess weight does not occur only because we eat too many calories and cannot spend them? Most of the excess weight is due to stagnation of lymph in the intercellular spaces with unremoved metabolic products (toxins, salts and so-called waste products).

Why can’t you eat at night?

— Digestive enzymes work worse at night, so food is less digested. This means that our cells do not receive enough nutrients, including proteins and vitamins.

— Undigested and undigested food moves slowly through the long intestine (6-8 meters long) and becomes food for pathogenic, putrefactive and fermentative bacteria, fungi and parasites.

— Intestinal motility slows down greatly at night because it needs vibration (our motor activity) and fiber, which is very scarce in our diet, to work well. In the slow intestine, reabsorption of all metabolic products, including toxins from bile, occurs. These harmful substances are carried to the whole body by blood, accumulate in the intercellular spaces, accumulate in fat cells, internal organs, bones and joints, damaging them and causing inflammation and diseases.

— Night is the kingdom of night hormones (melatonin, somatotropin), provided that the stomach is empty. They help synthesize new cells to replace damaged cells. For example, the growth of muscle tissue and the renewal of internal organ cells. For this purpose, intra-abdominal fat is actively used. And by the way, we lose weight from the waist area overnight.

— When a person eats at night, the daytime hormone insulin is secreted in response to the meal. It is responsible for the utilization of glucose in the blood and is an antagonist of night hormones. For this reason, melatonin and somatotropin (our night hormones) are not secreted sufficiently and cannot perform their functions well.

— Insulin “distributes” glucose to working cells (and they work much less at night), and unspent glucose turns into excess fat reserves.

What’s the best time for dinner?

Physiologists have found that processes in the body can be divided into three stages.

1. Entry of nutrients into the body and their breakdown into structural molecules.

2. Synthesis of new cells and their parts from these molecules.

3. Release of metabolic products through excretory systems.

Each of these stages takes approximately 8 hours, corresponding to 24 hours of the day in total.

Therefore, in order for everything in the body to go as it should, we must eat for 8 hours (assimilation period) and not eat anything for the remaining 16 hours (synthesis and excretion period).

Apparently, if you have breakfast at 8-10 o’clock after morning physical activity (and we already know that it is useful if you “earn” breakfast, I wrote about this in my last article), then dinner is at 18:00 at the latest. The last meal should be at least 3.5-4 hours before bedtime. This is the average time it takes for food to be digested and absorbed. This means that if you fall asleep between 22:00 and 23:00, the best time for dinner is no later than 19:30.

It is also better to eat at least every 3.5-4 hours. Then an overly strong hunger will not arise, forcing us to skip meals, eat too quickly and too much, which is very harmful to our health.

You should also not go to bed hungry, as this can negatively affect the quality of your sleep. If you still can’t avoid a late dinner, it’s best to make it light and low-glycemic. A small portion of a designer salad consisting of lots of greens and vegetables with a minimal addition of healthy fats or proteins (preferably vegetable ones) is perfect for this. And you should eat slowly, without distraction by watching television, chewing thoroughly and savoring every bite.

Friends, the best thing we can do to protect our health is to start being conscious, careful and sensitive in everything we do. By knowing the laws of physiology and understanding what our body needs and when, we can stop living according to a pattern, rebuild our lifestyle and habits, and change not only ourselves but also our future for the better.