People often say that you can’t eat carbs at night, but what’s the truth?
The short answer is that there’s no scientific reasoning or principle for this recommendation.
In actual fact, skipping carbs at night can help you lose weight simply because it forces you to reduce calories or reduce your total calorie intake. This is the only legitimate reason for this, however, it’s nothing magical and you could easily achieve this by dropping carbs, fats or calories out in the morning, at lunchtime, or any other time of day.
In contrast to this recommendation, I believe it makes more sense to eat more of your carbohydrates at night as they aid in relaxation (by releasing tryptophan), improve sleep and are also great post-workout or within a few hours of the workout window (which for most, tends to be at night).
In short, you can eat a well-balanced carb based meal (just make sure it is also high protein) at any time of the day. It is impossible to store more fat by eating the same amount of carbs before bed vs at another point in the day. As always, it really just comes down to the TOTAL amount of carbs,
I hope that cleared up another popular myth that may have scared you away from carbs at night in the past, check back next week for another tip or myth breakdown!
Author: Rudy Mawer, MS – International Sports Scientist & Nutritionist
