This is something that I’ve been meaning to write about for a long time because this is just about the most ignorant dietary myth that’s still around and I hear it over and over again. Don’t eat carbs after ‘X’ o’clock because it will turn into adipose tissue.
I mean how many of you have heard this before or think this is true? That it is bad to eat carbs after 6, 7, 8, 10 o’clock at night or even midnight? Well, big shocker coming your way because I’m here to shed some light on this myth.
To start, I am going to offer a bit of anecdote:
On January 5th, 2012 my father had a stroke (age 58). After a week in the hospital, the staff sent him home with a new diet to help drop about 50 lbs. Low sodium, low(er) fat, moderate protein and carbs. All good stuff and nothing weird as doctors can sometimes prescribe, though they did put him at 1800 calories, which is way too low for someone of his size.
About a month after his stroke he was struggling with his diet. Being the competitive bodybuilder that I am, I told him that the best shape I had ever been in, was when I trained for a bodybuilding show, and I encouraged him to do the same. After a few days, he decided to do a show that was in November. This gave him about 10 months to get in shape.
My dad, at age 58, weighing 220 lbs started out at the following macros:
[table id=27 /]
For a grand total of 2535 calories
About 4 weeks in he was having a hard time eating all the carbs that we gave him. He simply could not eat enough rice and sweet potatoes to hit 280 grams. That is when I sat him down and had him eat almost half a gallon of low-fat vanilla ice cream. Having struggled with his weight for 30+ years, he said the same thing that so many of my new Macro Blueprint clients say.. “You mean, I can eat ice cream, and still lose weight?”.
Yes, you can I said… Yes, you can.
For the next 8 months, my dad ate low-fat vanilla ice cream as his last meal of the night, right before he went to bed, and week after week, month after month he continued to burn fat at an alarming rate.
Like everyone that has to diet for 10-12 months, his fat loss did stall, and we did have to drop his macros, but even during the last 6 weeks of his contest prep, when he got down to 100 carbs for the day, he was still eating ice cream before bed.
From mid March to November 10th my dad lost 58 lbs of fat, and gained 18 lbs of muscle to stop on stage at 180 lbs, all while eating ice cream at night!
For years now, people believe that since they are closer to sleeping they should curtail carbohydrate intake, this is simply ludicrous. Carbohydrates at night don’t make you fat; too many total calories make you fat.
A study done by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem took 78 obese subjects and had them consume carbohydrates mostly at dinner for 6 months and results showed greater weight loss, abdominal circumference, and body fat mass reduction.
Additionally, if you train at night you NEED those carbohydrates to properly recover and start glycogen re-synthesis (stored carbs in the body that convert to glucose in the bloodstream). Insulin sensitivity is high after a workout, so it’s okay to eat a high amount of carbs at this time and not worry about storing excess carbs into fat.
Your metabolism doesn’t say hey it’s night time, so that means I have to store these carbs into fat cells. There’s nothing about night time that changes your metabolism.
Dial-In Your Intake
If you are not training at night and you eat the right amount of carbs to hit your daily macronutrient count, then you’ll be fine. On the contrary, if you’re living a sedentary lifestyle, you can eat a moderate serving of complex carbs at night (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, bran cereal, low-fat popcorn, brown rice, etc.) about the size of your fist with a lean protein source before bed.
This is something our coaches at IIFYM.com will calculate for you when you sign up for a Macro Blueprint.
I really don’t know where people got this notion of not being able to eat carbs after ‘X” o’clock because it will turn into adipose tissue. I’ve never come across a study or research that has proven facts to this myth.
So, stop being Carbophobe and cutting carbs out after ‘X’ times because you’re missing out on crucial calories and nutrients that your body could be assimilating. Carbs at night don’t make you fat; too many total calories make you fat and if your metabolism is telling you not to eat carbs at night, shut it up by eating some more carbs!