Why eating late at night may be particularly bad for you and your diet

The Washington Post:

Loath as you may be to admit it, chances are that at some point you have found yourself in the kitchen late at night, devouring some sweet, salty or carb-rich treat even though you weren’t hungry.

Scientists are getting closer to understanding why people indulge after dark and to determining whether those nighttime calories wreak more havoc — whether they drive up the risk of weight gain and of chronic diseases such diabetes — than ones consumed earlier in the day.

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Don’t restrict what you eat so severely during the day, says Traci Mann, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and author of “Secrets From the Eating Lab: The Science of Weight Loss, the Myth of Willpower and Why You Should Never Diet Again.” That way, you won’t have to control yourself as much at night, and you won’t be preoccupied with feeling hungry and rebound with food you’ve been forbidding yourself to eat. “Most dieters say that their toughest time of day is post-dinner,” Mann says.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post