To date, a huge number of diets have appeared. Their difference lies in the intensity of training, the schedule of meals and the variety of nutrition. However, many believe that you can not eat after 6 hours. But why is this happening and is it possible to ignore this statement?
Naturally, the question is interesting and relevant, but first you need to understand where is the myth and where is the reality, why can’t you eat in the evening? It should be noted that at night the internal organs slow down their work, so food remains in the stomach like an unbearable burden. In the morning, the digestive system urgently needs to process everything, and this is a rather difficult task for it.
As a result, the formation of toxins that are absorbed into the blood. As a result, immunity weakens, a sluggish general condition, complexion deteriorates, and more. Naturally, it appears, because the body does not have time to get rid of accumulated calories, it deposits fat reserves in the most problematic places.
However, too hard fasting is also strictly prohibited! If the stomach is completely empty from 18.00 to 8.00, then the body does not receive the required amount of food. As a result, in any case, he tries to create additional reserves so as not to "starve to death."
You can not eat - this is more than a relative concept. Indeed, in both cases, the deposition of fat is obtained. Also, night hunger strikes lead to insomnia, as a result, constant lack of sleep and fatigue can provoke depression and nervousness. Some starving people get out of bed at 3 a.m. and begin to replenish the lack of energy near the refrigerator.
Judging by everything described above, you should not go to extremes and consider that it is absolutely impossible to eat if it has struck 6 o'clock in the evening. You can cook a light dinner, eat low-fat cottage cheese or vegetable salad, drink a glass of milk, or prefer some cheese. Professional nutritionists advise eating calorie-burning foods shortly before bedtime.
Expert opinion
It is impossible to develop a universal diet that will work for everyone. All of them carry a common message, but are subject to adjustments for a particular person. For the most part, people do not think about the fact that each person has a different schedule, not only work, but also life. For example, how can a person diet while working the night shift?
It should be taken into account what time a particular person goes to bed, his work schedule, actively or passively he spends his free time. "Owls" and "larks" need to follow different diets, even if the composition of the products remains the same.
If within 7 - 8 hours a person does not receive food, the body begins to go astray. It is necessary to adhere to the position of regular and proper nutrition, and not to think that “you can’t eat”, period.
"Owl" and diet
Most diets are calculated exclusively for early risers. The last meal should be 3-4 hours before going to bed. This is suitable for those who go to bed early and get up early, have breakfast early, and then do not refuse lunch. Such people have dinner around 17.00. They have enough of this diet.
Owls, on the other hand, spend their days in a completely different rhythm. You need to have a hearty breakfast to get enough energy for the rest of the day. However, you need to eat only when the body has completely moved away from sleep. If at breakfast you want to lie down on a plate and fall asleep, then the food will not be digested properly, it will turn into body fat. "Owls" sometimes should have breakfast at a time when others sit down to dinner.
In the evening, you should definitely eat 3-4 hours before bedtime, even if the clock is already 22.00 in the evening. If a person is used to falling asleep at 2 am, then such a dinner is quite normal for him. However, this does not mean at all that you need to eat half a fried chicken carcass in one sitting, you should do evening reception food more light.
Choosing the Right Diet
Naturally, many dream of, but do not forget about the schedule of your own life. If you feel hungry all the time, then you can fall into. It is better to choose a diet that does not bring great inconvenience, and ignore the statement “can not eat”.
It is advisable to go to a consultation with a nutritionist so that he develops the most effective method for losing weight and eating time.
conclusions
It turns out that the truth is in the golden mean, so you should not categorically deny yourself food if everyone says that you can’t eat after six. You can’t eat, but it’s worth eating a little. If a person comes home from work only at 20.00 and sits down for dinner, then this is not critical, all the more not scary. You just need to observe moderation and try not to eat heavy food at night.
Every person who at least once in his life seeks to lose excess weight, knows a lot of golden rules how to do it. One of the most famous is the law: do not eat after 18 hours. But there is always a related question: who came up with this, why can't you eat after 6?
Justification, that why you can not eat after 6:
After the opinion appeared that after 18 hours it is strictly forbidden to eat, there were also the most popular versions that popularly explain why you can not eat after six in the evening.
- Biorhythmologists say that after 18 hours the body is no longer set up to process new food. At this time, he actively removes from the previously received food beneficial features. That is, the body is rebuilt to a different type of work, and everything eaten after 18 will remain in the body along the way deposited in fat.
- It should be remembered that for most people the working day lasts up to 18 hours. And this means that after a hard day's work, a person will be less active and, as a result, all the calories eaten will be deposited, and not burned by physical activity.
- In addition, there is a controversial opinion that the body acts deliberately according to the same pattern. After 18 hours have struck on the clock, everything inside a person is rebuilt to replenish fat reserves, which means that all food will contribute to this. And after 21:00, the stomach falls asleep at all, despite the absence or presence of food in it.
- It is said that it takes the body about 5 hours to process food. Although this figure should vary depending on the product that you ate. But, if we take into account this particular indicator, it certainly turns out that the food eaten at 18 o'clock will be over-eaten only at 23:00, and this best option because this is the time when most people go to bed.
Despite the fact that there are many versions, the ban on eating after 18 hours cannot be justified by all people, since it must be taken into account that there are people who are not suitable for such a regime. These may be those who work the night shift, the well-known "owls", whose body works according to a different biological clock, or those who cannot live without night snacks. It is worth remembering that the figure "18:00" is very conditional and depends on many factors.
There is also an opinion that the point of losing weight is not to limit food intake after 6 pm, but to moderate calorie intake. If you eat an apple after 6 p.m., it is unlikely that it will negatively affect the centimeters of your waist. Therefore, nutritionists recommend a light snack after the time indicated in the article.
How not to eat after 6?
Now, having found out why you shouldn't eat after 6 pm, you need to figure out what to do if the desire to refuse food after 18 hours is great. Here are a few tips to keep in mind to help keep that desire in check:
Try to drink plain water instead of food. In fact, very often people feel thirsty but don't realize it. Therefore, water will not only replenish the water balance, but also satisfy the feeling of hunger.
— hot tub or walking, chatting with friends, reading an interesting book and many other options will help to distract from the desire to eat. The main thing is that the lesson is interesting for you, then time will pass imperceptibly.
- in order to slightly deceive your body, you can brush your teeth after the last meal. This will make you subconsciously come to the conclusion that it’s time to go to bed soon, and not think about the next snack.
In addition, people who do not eat after 6 pm have a great advantage. They maintain their normal weight and manage to lose extra pounds. All this thanks to a reduced daily calorie intake. That's why you can't eat after six.
To the simplest question: why exactly 18:00, why not 17:50 or 19:00? - no one knows the answer. The rule is stereotypical, and appeared thanks to the imagination of nutritionists in the 80s of the last century. There is no scientific evidence base for this rule, as evidenced by the illogicality and absence of any arguments.
The rule not to eat after 6 p.m. was created thanks to American nutritionists. The task was simple - it is necessary to reduce the consumption of calories per capita, but do it unobtrusively. All sorts of false statements have appeared, according to which the gastric juice and gastrointestinal tract begin to work poorly in the evening. The blame was placed on the biological clock and human rhythms.
But after all, the rule was invented for a reason, so the potential benefit exists, and this should be discussed in detail.
Losing weight is a calorie deficit
Your task is to create an energy deficit, either by training or by eating. The most effective technique is to reduce the diet. The rule "do not eat after 18:00" significantly reduces the daily calorie content of the diet, that is, there is a deficit and corresponding weight loss.
Often this rule leads to skipping a full dinner. That is, you exclude normal food intake from the diet. Calories are getting smaller, but will this method help to lose weight?
Alas, skipping any meal will not give you the desired result. This knocks the body out of its usual schedule, and it will simply compensate the next day for everything that you did not add to it at breakfast or lunch. In theory, in this way you will cut the diet by 1/3, but in practice, you will make it worse. The body is a unique balanced system that will get what it wants, and in our case, energy from food, if not today, then tomorrow, and it has enough “pressure levers” on you, starting with an increase in appetite, and ending with low physical activity .
Why can't you eat after 6?
If we exclude what is written above, then in addition to this, the statistics of breakdowns can serve as a significant argument. Most often, people break down in the evening, and eat up the missing calories. If you do not eat in the evening and go to bed early, you will most likely protect yourself from breakdowns, but this method will not work on a regular basis.
There is a review of studies conducted over the past 40 years. We tested various eating patterns, intuitive eating techniques, food refusals, and much more. What is the conclusion? - Manipulation with the refusal of meals or various games with snacks do not give a long-term result in losing weight. If they help, then only at the beginning.
What is remarkable: the greater the mass of a person, the more aggressively the body will react to such “bayonets” on your part. For example, if a fat person refuses breakfast, his body will force him to eat more food for the rest of the day than he would have received with breakfast. Of course, we are talking about eating meals without counting calories - intuitively. Therefore, the “no eating after 6 p.m.” rule is often seen as an adjunct to the intuitive diet.
How to put the rule into practice
Despite the small benefit of not eating after 6 p.m., an experienced dieter can take advantage of it, but under certain conditions. Remake the rule: you can’t eat sweets after 18:00, or you can’t eat anything other than cottage cheese / kefir / milk after 18:00, etc. Start from individual habits and weaknesses.
Your task is to minimize the risk of breakdowns in the evening. If the object of "irritation" for you is sweets, then forbid yourself to eat them after 18:00, but do not forbid them at all, otherwise you will approach a breakdown. This rule helps many people who lose weight in the format: “You can’t eat anything other than the right food after 18:00.” A lot of calories from buckwheat, chicken breast or vegetables you will not get, and at the same time easily suppress your appetite, which will reduce the risk of diet breakdowns.
Style Outcome
You can eat at any time, it will not affect weight loss. What matters is the balance of calories and the deficit for each day or week. You can easily eat 3,000 calories before 6:00 pm, and of course, no weight loss is out of the question. If you fast after 18:00 and keep a normal amount of calories, you will break the next day and the body will make up for what it was not given yesterday.
Therefore, the rule "do not eat after 18:00" is irrelevant and unreasonable.
Is it possible to eat after 6, and if not, then why, this problem is often considered not only by those who lose weight, but also by people who simply monitor their health. And, like any theory, the assertion that late dinners are not very healthy has both ardent supporters and those who fundamentally disagree with this. Let's see why it's bad to eat after 6.
According to the statements of fans of the theory of biorhythms, it slows down with sunset, so the food we eat after sunset is not digested well, turns into toxins that clog the body. And all the energy received is not spent by us, being transported directly to fat depots, and settles there as hated fat. This is a rather controversial theory, but there are still rational reasons why you should follow the rule of not eating after six:
- at night, a full stomach can put pressure on the diaphragm and interfere with normal breathing, which affects the quality of a night's rest, not for the better;
- during sleep, the stomach and digestive organs work less intensively than during the day, and the food eaten at night will linger in them for a longer period, and this provokes putrefactive processes in the intestines, and as a result, problems with the organs gastrointestinal tract;
- again, if food lingers in the stomach for a long time, its mucosa is exposed to hydrochloric acid for too long, which increases the risk of gastritis and stomach ulcers.
And yet, it's no secret that many of us in the morning, if they eat breakfast, do it purely symbolically, at lunch, which most often happens at work (if it happens at all), you don't really eat much either. But in the evening ... There is a super-dense dinner (we didn’t eat all day), and cookies, nuts, kirieshki in front of the TV. So it turns out that in the evening we gain not only the daily, but the three-day calorie intake.
In this case, there is only one recipe - to put your diet in order. You should have 3 main meals and 3 snacks in between. Dinner is really better to arrange at 6 pm if you go to bed at 21:00-22:00. If this is not the case, then remember: the last meal should be 4 hours before bedtime.
Well, for those who have firmly decided to adhere to the rule of not eating field 6, a few tips on how to do this:
- If you want to eat, drink. Firstly, water will fill the stomach, and secondly, the centers that are responsible for thirst and in our brain are located nearby, and we often confuse their signals.
- Do something interesting, watch a movie, read a book, go for a walk.
- After dinner, brush your teeth immediately, this will help you mentally tune in to prepare for bed.
- Go to bed early.
In contact with
Basic principles of weight loss
The main principle of weight loss says that our body should receive energy in smaller quantities, and expend in large quantities. Therefore, if you overeat all day long, forget about proper nutrition, and after six do not eat, then the weight will still increase. Even if you limit your diet, but do not engage in fitness, you will not be able to lose much weight either. Therefore, in order to achieve good results, first of all, you need to create a harmonious nutrition system and add feasible physical exercise(Do not overdo it either.)
How many times a day should you eat?
If with food you consume more energy than you spend, and what your body needs, then you will get fat - there are no other options. Neither the timing of the extra calories, nor the sequence, nor even the foods are as important as the total number of those calories.
In addition, even the frequency of meals and portion sizes are not as important as many people think. In fact, there are no serious studies showing the exact number of meals per day or the time interval between these meals.
In most cases, three to four meals a day is more than enough (again, as long as you meet your daily caloric intake). Even those looking to gain muscle don't need to eat every 3 hours. Of course, if you do not have serious diseases such as ulcers, gastritis, when a special diet with frequent meals is required. It is only important to dial right amount protein and calories so that you have enough energy.
After a hearty breakfast, you will be less hungry throughout the day, and it will be easier for you to control portions of food for lunch and dinner. If you are hungry all day, then at dinner you will simply pounce on food and eat significantly more than you need. Therefore, you should not skip breakfast, as it is the most important meal of the day.
And not eating after six does work for weight loss, but not in the way most people think. It's just another constraint that allows the average urban office worker to eat less overall. The whole secret here is hidden in the reduction of calories. Scientists have long confirmed that a late dinner disrupts sleep, which in turn affects hormonal metabolism and a person simply begins to experience unmotivated bouts of hunger during the day and in the evening, combined with lethargy and apathy in the morning.
Therefore, a person gains excess weight not from a late dinner in itself, but from overeating caused by lack of sleep. Moreover, to increase your appetite, it is enough that your brain does not “get enough sleep”, you can spend more than 8 hours in bed and still feel tired in the morning.
After each meal during the day, the pancreas produces the hormone insulin. It helps to break down carbohydrates for energy and store fat as a backup source. At night, "growth hormones" are involved in the breakdown of fats. However, if you eat a heavy meal before bed, the pancreas produces insulin, and the pituitary gland receives a signal that the body has not received food. And the body begins to urgently process all incoming food into fat in order to save important organs from starvation. So you do not need to spend valuable fat reserves, but it is also worth creating their surplus. Better to let them stay the same.
Getting slimmer and eating after 6 is quite possible
It is worth considering that carbohydrates for dinner are not best idea, and dinner should be finished 3 hours before bedtime so that the food has time to be digested. For dinner, you should stop at fish, seafood, cottage cheese, kefir and a small amount of non-starchy vegetables. These foods do not create a glycogen reserve and are quickly absorbed, so you will go to bed full, but without feeling heavy.
For snacks during the afternoon, the following products will be adequate: milk, meat, cottage cheese, eggs, cheese, nuts. For dinner, opt for meat dishes such as veal, beef, chicken, turkey, rabbit. They contain less fat and are better digested, especially when combined with vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce. Meat is best stewed or steamed. Fried foods are not suitable for dinner - they are poorly digested and generally poorly useful for the body.
You can drink a glass of good red wine in the evening, but only in combination with a suitable snack and with a sense of proportion. The assertion that a little wine can have a beneficial effect on the body is not an invention of alcoholics anonymous. This is a proven fact, but subject to moderation and good quality product.
Nutritionists advise eating foods rich in fiber for dinner, which helps burn calories: tomatoes, carrots, eggplant, beets, apples, strawberries, watermelon, oranges, apricots. All of these fruits and vegetables will help you lose weight, but fans of a low-carb diet may want to exclude "fruits" from the evening menu.
For those who train in the evening, it is advisable to have a small meal a couple of hours before strength training. complex carbohydrates, and within an hour after you can already eat fish or cottage cheese with vegetables or drink a protein shake without carbohydrates. Before aerobics, on the contrary, have a snack with protein foods, and instead of dinner, drink a glass of kefir. Protein after strength training- a prerequisite that you do not overtrain and will not receive energy due to the breakdown of muscle tissue while maintaining fat. So eat after six only the right products and without fanaticism. And do not forget that "up to six" is necessary
watch your diet and don't overeat. And daily drink at least 1.5 liters of ordinary water, with its deficiency, the metabolic processes in the body (and the digestion process is no exception) are much slower.
In order for the evening restriction in food to become effective, follow a number of rules:
- Breakfast should be complete, it should not be skipped;
- During the day, eat several times in small portions, snacks should also be useful, do not overeat - the feeling of satiety comes within 20 minutes after eating;
- Coffee is good too, but don't overdo it. It activates the brain, eliminates stress and even protects against overeating!
- Dinner should be a maximum of 4 hours before bedtime;
- Give up fatty, fried, smoked, salty, spicy, starchy foods and sweets;
- Drink water before eating;
- Dinner should consist of low-calorie foods in small quantities;
- Do not rush to radically change the system if you are used to eating before bed. First try to do this one hour before bedtime, then gradually increase this interval. It takes about a month to get into a rhythm. In the end, your body will thank you.
