When should be your last meal of the day and what should you eat? I’ll bet you think you know the answer, but it might not be so clear cut. Have you heard the saying “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper?” It’s true for the most part, but there are a few exceptions. Let’s take a look.

 

If You’re Trying to Lose Body Fat

 

Certainly if you’re trying to lose body fat, dinner should be 3-5 hours before bedtime (with no snacks afterwards), and fairly light (or at least no bigger than the other meals). Why? For a couple of reasons.

First, your last 3-5 hours are probably not being spent in heavy exercise, so those extra calories will likely go towards fat stores.

Secondly, your body burns two fuel sources just to stay alive: sugar (AKA carbohydrates, glucose, etc.) and fat. If you last meal is a balanced meal with 20-30% of those calories in the form of carbohydrates, it takes you 3-5 hours to digest those carbohydrates. This way by the time your head hits the pillow, you’ll be slightly sugar-depleted, so your body will burn fat preferentially. Yep, you\’re burning fat while you’re sleeping. Isn’t that cool?

 

 

The Exception to That Rule

 

There is an exception to the above rule, and it’s a fairly important one. In her book The Schwartzbein Principle, Dr. Diana Schwartzbein says that you don’t just need to lose weight to be healthy, you need to be healthy to lose weight.

So if you have high cortisol in the evenings, you should probably eat within 1-2 hours of bedtime, and that meal should be higher in carbohydrates.

Cortisol should be naturally high in the morning and go down throughout the day. But if your personal cortisol rhythm is such that it’s high all throughout the day or it’s just high in the evening, that’s not good. You know that you have high cortisol in the evenings if you have a hard time falling asleep.

That’s why a carbohydrate-rich meal later in the evening can work well to help you with your insomnia (although it’s just masking the problem. You should seek to naturally correct your cortisol rhythm so that you don’t need carbohydrates as a sleep aid). Simply put, carbohydrates help you lower your cortisol.

 

If You’re Trying to Gain Muscle

 

If you’re trying to gain muscle, your last meal of the day should be as close to bedtime as possible (in fact, some crazy people known as professional bodybuilders will even wake up twice throughout the night just to eat), and it should be a big meal.

It would be a good idea to eat a combination of casein protein (unless you’re sensitive to casein, then avoid it) along with some fiber.

Why?

The reason is that casein is a protein that gets released very slowly (over a period of 5-8 hours), so it will decrease how much your muscles break down overnight. Fiber also helps slow down how quickly something enters the bloodstream, which prolongs how long that protein stays in the blood.

Lastly, if you’re a person who won’t put on fat no matter what you eat (yes, these people exist), I’d also make your last meal rich in carbohydrates. They “open up the gates” to the muscles more effectively than protein and fiber by themselves.

By the way, where can you find casein? With the exception of protein powders, you don’t really find it by itself in food. It’s usually bundled with another protein called “whey”, and the best source of it is milk. We’re talking about whole milk. If you’re trying to gain muscle, don’t even think about skim milk or 2% milk.

 

Any Questions?

 

If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments section below, and I’ll be sure to answer them.

 

Quick Summary

 

• If you’re trying to lose body fat, your last meal should be 3-5 hours away from bedtime and be fairly light.
• If you’re having problems falling asleep, your last meal should be closer to bedtime, and should have more carbohydrates.
  • At the same time, seek help with the insomnia.
• If you’re trying to gain muscle, your last meal should consist of protein, carbohydrates and fiber. It should be as close to bedtime as possible.