About eating at night...

I just learned A LOT from Jillian Michael's new book Master Your Metabolism. She confirmed quite a bit of what I already knew, and have been teaching you, which was a big confidence boost for me. However, there were many new ideas in her book, which I'm going to share with you here. First, she explained WHY eating at night (especially carbs) makes you gain weight. I've always heard that, but never understood why.

I didn't know any of this....................

1. You have a hormone, called Cortisol, that tells your body to store fat. Your body makes less of it in the morning than it does in the evening and night time. So eat your carbs in the morning and eat fewer as the day goes on, and NONE at night.

2. Your gastric emptying rate (or the rate at which food leaves your stomach) slows down at night.

3. Your ability to process glucose (sugar) is best in the morning, slower in the evening, and almost nil when you sleep.

4. About one hour after you fall asleep, when you are sleeping hard, your body releases its largest pulse of growth hormone for the whole day! Growth hormone builds cells and burns fat!!! Insulin slows growth hormone production. You know what makes insulin, right? Sugar (aka carbs). Carbs at night = high insulin = low growth hormone = less restoration for your body and less fat burned!!

5. Deep sleep is best achieved when your hunger hormone, Ghrelin, is high. All foods that make you full depress Ghrelin, of course, but carbs depress it more than any other nutrient.

So...... we need to be in a semi-fasting state when we go to sleep, so we can fall into deep sleep sooner and make the most of the most beneficial hormone release of the day!

DON'T eat carbs after dinner. If you MUST eat, snack on leftover lean meat or non-carb veggies. Carbs will make your insulin high and your Ghrelin low, which will limit your production of fat burning growth hormones!

DON'T eat anything in the hour before you fall asleep. You need to be a bit hungry (high hunger hormone, Ghrelin) to fall into deep sleep.