To prevent this from happening, he recommends eating a fiber-rich dinner full of fruits or vegetables. “Just like when you don’t have enough gas in the car to make it on an eight-hour road trip, your brain needs fuel to make it through the day,” says Tony Castillo, MS, RDN, LDN, co-founder of Nutrition for Performance. When you are not eating enough food throughout the day, you risk going into a calorie deficit - when the number of calories you burn is greater than the number of calories you’ve consumed. You’re Not Eating Enough Throughout the Day If you’ve gotten in the habit of skipping breakfast, Cipullo recommends trying to eat at least a 250-calorie meal in the morning consisting of high protein, fat and fiber, like a hard-boiled egg on a piece of toasted wheat bread. What’s more: Skipping breakfast also may make you hungrier in the nighttime and increase your risk for obesity, Cipullo notes. In fact, one study published in The Journal of Nutrition linked eating breakfast to a decreased risk in Type 2 diabetes. After having fasted for 10 to 12 hours through the night, your body is naturally craving food and may very well benefit from enjoying a meal first thing in the morning. There’s a reason why breakfast is known as the most important meal of the day. Here, registered dietitians break down some of the key culprits of increased hunger during bedtime and explain the best ways to go about addressing this hunger. If you find yourself eating late every night, a good way to figure out whether doing so is conducive to your well-being is to figure out what’s causing that hunger at that given time of day. “However, it is likely better to eat enough, even when you feel hungry before bed, and sleep well (seven to nine hours) than to skip dinner and interrupt your sleep cycle.”

“There have been studies suggesting poor uptake of sugar in our blood when melatonin is high at night before bed and early in the morning,” says Laura Cipullo, RD, a registered dietitian who specializes in the treatment of eating disorders and diabetes.

In fact, eating before bed is a bit controversial, with some research showing that it could be negative for your overall health and other research showing that it does have some silver linings. But if you’re like most humans, you’ve also experienced hunger outside the realm of these social structures - maybe even late into the evening around the time you’d normally head to bed.ĭespite what you’ve probably heard, eating before bed is not necessarily bad, but it’s also not ideal either. Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!Īs humans, we’ve grown accustomed to eating at the same times each day - usually in the morning for breakfast, in the early afternoon for lunch and in the evening for dinner, with a few snacks thrown in between.

Im constantly hungry