Eating at Night

[Matthieu Hertilus]

I understand that to lose fat one must calories whenever you can; however, I also understand that nighttime feeding is one of the best ways to take advantage of prime anabolic window. Would it hurt my fat loss goals to have something closer to bed time provided that calories throughout the day are 'relatively' low? Wouldnt this extra meal only help maintain or even add lean mass while cutting down?

Hopefully I made that question clear without sounding completely clueless, thanks in advance to everyone's input on the matter.

[Derek Weaver]

You're worrying about things that don't matter. What you're describing is essentially Warrior Diet type feeding, with low cals (next to nothing throughout the day) and a big overfeeding at night.

It's doubtful you're going to add lean mass while leaning out unless you're a) fat or b) an untrained new comer to strength training. Occasionally with certain approaches a little lean mass can be added, but it's not common.

Eat less than you burn and don't screw with your hormones and you'll lose weight/fat. Eat more and you'll gain it.

Carbs are not evil, but if you have issues with insulin management and hunger control, keep them around training and nowhere else.

Experiment, but give it time. You'll get lean if you let yourself.

[Arien Malec]

Probably diminishing returns and overthinking things. Assuming you've got your food quality and training dialed in, the next best trick, IMHO, to try is nutrient timing around exercise (e.g., eating LC through most of the day, and eating all carbs post exercise) to take advantage of the fat mobilization benefits of low insulin. Then would be IF, and cyclic dieting (manipulation of caloric intake and carb content).

Working time of day eating is well into diminishing returns. Besides which, as I understand, the nightime anabolism is GH related, and high insulin levels post-meal will interfere with GH levels. But even worrying about that is off the deep end. Keep it simple: good food, at caloric deficit, with sufficient protein, and good training, with enough breaks (cheat days, higher carb days, time off lower calories) to keep everything from going to hell.

[Derek Weaver]

Worrying about one meal is pointless. Whether it be timing, content etc. It's more important to pay attention to calories and macros in a 24 hour period, then a 7 day period if you want to get really into it. that's on the extreme end though.