Late Snack Cravings: Why Do We Have Them?
A slice of chocolate cake, a large bag of crisps, and microwave heated pizza – staying up late makes your body want to eat high-calorie foods that leads to weight gain. So if you’re looking to shed some fats, learn how to control your circadian rhythm, a new study suggests.
Midnight snacking is a common routine of many. But according to a new study published in the journal Obesity, it is not simply a habitwhich a person builds up overtime. Late snack cravings are actually triggered by the circadian rhythm – the body’s biological clock. Researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School found that the circadian rhythm intensifies hunger at night so snacking may eventually lead to consuming high-calorie foods.
For the current study, Frank Scheer, Ph.D. and Christopher Morris, Ph.D., the lead authors, examined the appetite and food preference of 12 healthy non-overweight individuals for 13 days. During such period, participants stayed in a darkened laboratory room, where their meals and sleep were timed, and behaviours were scheduled. The purpose of the experiment is to study the true effects of circadian rhythm on appetite, while controlling other factors, including the amount of food recently consumed.
Their findings show that the internal circadian system regulates hunger. Participants felt least hungry at 8am and most hungry at 8pm. The researchers also found similar rhythms in the type of foods that participants ate, including sweet, starchy and salty foods. Participants have less craving for high-calorie foods in the morning than in the evening.
Weight Loss Tips
“Of course, there are many factors that affect weight gain, principally diet and exercise, but the time of eating also has an effect” says Steven Shea, Ph.D., director for the Centre for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology at Oregon Health & Science University. He added that people who eat a lot in the evening, especially high-calorie foods and beverages, tend to gain weight.
Controlling Appetite in the Evening
Evening snacking has its roots in the ancient times when people had to eat more to store energy and resist hunger in the woods. But in the present times, eating too much at night is not likely to help the patient. According to the researchers, late night snacking can be counterproductive since the human body handles nutrients differently depending on the time of the day. For instance, the ability to absorb glucose is low in the evening while consuming more calories in the evening makes the body store more energy. And when this energy is not used up, it is stored as fats.
Another factor that increases a person’s appetite in the evening is the prevalent use of artificial lights. They enable people to stay awake for longer hours. As a result, they tend to eat more.
If your goal is to lose weight, Dr Shea recommends eating larger amount of high-calorie meals earlier in the day. In addition to this, going to bed earlier, getting enough sleep and choosing low-calorie foods for evening snacks will all help in weight loss.
How do you make sure that your evening meals and snacks are healthy? What other tips can you recommend for those who are trying to lose weight?
Source of this article:
Study explains what triggers those late-night snack cravings
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