Do you really gain weight from eating after eight o'clock in the evening?

In recent years, I've received a bit of an overload of information about food. It feels like eight new diets emerged weekly, and all eight were supposed to be truly life-changing. One swore by eating small meals throughout the day, while another claimed that intermittent fasting was the best way to lose weight and that you should actually not eat for long periods. Another says that drinking water is the secret, and then you also have the special studies that say that you should have pizza for breakfast and, my personal favorite, that you would lose weight from wine.

Well, actually I've only tried the latter (because I love wine) and, against all expectations, I didn't lose weight. However, there is one golden tip that I've heard for years, before all these trendy diets: don't eat after eight o'clock in the evening. I've tried it once, but then I moved it to nine o'clock in the evening because I always sleep late.

Last week I saw it again on Nu.nl: does it really work? There hasn't been much research done on it, yet many people believe it helps with weight loss. When you think about it, it also sounds quite logical: in the evening, you generally move less than during the day, so you burn less, which means you shouldn't eat (much and/or fatty) food.

And then the revealing word: do you really gain weight if you eat after eight o'clock? No. It really doesn't matter at all. What you do gain weight from is the choice you make regarding food. According to Eveline van de Waterlaat (dietitian and author of ‘Now lose weight and never gain it back’), our brains can sometimes confuse fatigue and hunger. The result: we start snacking unhealthily.

I can relate to that because when I eat something in the evening, nine times out of ten it's not a tomato or cucumber but chips. Inconvenient. Moreover, all those carbohydrates don't really help your biological clock according to Van De Waterlaat: ’You deprive your body of the chance to go into rest mode if you eat a plate of pasta just before going to bed.‘ That also sounds quite logical.

So do you want to lose weight? Then you can still eat something after eight o'clock in the evening, but choose something light and healthy. Actually, the whole concept of ’losing weight‘ works like this, now that I think about it...

Source: nu.nl
Image: @kourtneykardash