Going to bed with a growling tummy has different effects on different people. But according to experts, it’s often not doing any favors for your health or weight.
If you don’t keep an eye on the clock, you might occasionally find yourself going to bed hungry or eating late at night instead. Neither are necessarily great options. Skipping meals won’t cure your cravings, and the later you eat, the more likely you’ll make poor food choices. But don’t stress, it’s not necessarily all bad news, according to nutrition experts. If you’re hungry at night, but opt for sleep instead of food, here are some of the effects that going to bed hungry has on your body and health.
You could get less of a good-night sleep.
A full tummy makes the blood “go down there” to process the meal and you feel more sleepy after having a snack before bed. Going to bed hungry might make you more anxious, and hunger pangs might subconsciously alert your brain, causing nightmares and weird dreams, or even waking you up, making you to go to the fridge.
You could lose muscle mass
If you’re skipping meals, you might miss nutrients essential for the protein of your body to turn into muscle weight. Thus, all those protein you intake daily would be for waste, and your body will take out from the muscle mass during the night, according to the study conducted by the European Society of Cardiology. If you have been skipping meals instead of getting a healthy diet, you might also hurt the most important muscle of all – your heart!
Fluctuations in your weight
Losing weight might result from going to bed hungry. But, gaining weight is something that is a considerable option as well. Why? As we’ve mentioned above, your mind will subconsciously be alerted for food and hunger and when you wake up in the morning, you might eat twice more for breakfast than usual. Also, eating a big breakfast slows down the blood circulation towards you brain, making your thought not so clear and focused in the morning.
You will probably feel less energetic
Your body is burning calories even when you’re sleeping, but surely not as much as jogging. However, if you skip a meal, you might feel less energetic in the morning, because your body is “low on fuel”.
The research proved that “men who had a shake with 30 grams of protein before bed experienced a higher resting energy expenditure (how much energy, or calories, the body burns at rest) the next morning compared to those who ate nothing before bed.
If you go to bed hungry, your depleted energy levels could have a lasting effect on the rest of your day, so grab a small bite to eat before snoozing”.
You could become crankier
Mood swings, anxiety, crankiness might all occur because of going to bed hungry. The research showed that the levels of serotonin, which is a hormone for regulating the behavior, fluctuate based on the food we eat and how often we eat it. This affects our emotions and parts of the brain that help people to control anger and panic. You become more irritated when you’re hungry, that’s for sure!
