Snacking might be keeping you from losing the extra weight that has been bothering you. Studies have shown that people who eat after 8 p.m. are fatter than people who don’t. The body mass indexes (or BMIs) of those who enjoy snacking after 8 p.m. tend to be higher than those who don’t, even when they consume the same number of calories or less.

The studies also showed that night eaters were missing nearly four more teeth than those who finished eating before 8 p.m.. This remained true regardless of age, sex, BMI and education.  Psychologist Jennifer Lundgren from the University of Missouri-Kansas City said, “we hypothesize that consuming foods in the middle of the night, not brushing or flossing one’s teeth after nocturnal ingestions, and reduced salivary flow during the night increase the risk of tooth loss in this sample.”

Your body is not able to process food as well when the majority of your daily calories are consumed at night. Most people work during the day and are tired after work. That exhaustion is good for sleeping but not for digesting large dinners. Going to sleep after having a large dinner puts extra pressure on your body.  If you wake up in the morning feeling tired or have restless nights your eating pattern probably has something to do with it.

So here are some tips – don’t eat meat late at night. Red meat takes too long to digest at night. Your body processes fruits and grains much faster than it processes meat. After dinner (which will hopefully be before 8 p.m. now) brush your teeth. You won’t want to brush them again, so hopefully that will keep you from snacking late at night.

– Techyville