What to Eat Before Bed (so You Look Great the Next Morning)

To reduce inflammation while you sleep – and to wake without a puffy face and bloated belly – try these healthier foods as alternatives to typically problematic snacks. It makes a difference what you eat before bed.

A video lower within this article – featuring a highly regarded medical doctor – reveals surprising insights. Also, near the end of this article, check out the easy and delicious recipe for a creamy dessert that can help you sleep better and wake refreshed.

Should You Eat Before Bed?

Is it a good idea for you to eat before bed?

Eating before bed may benefit you depending on your unique metabolism, food sensitivities, and physical activity level.

Generally, the earlier in the evening you can eat your last meal or snack of the day, the better. But it depends on how much working out you’re doing – and what you’re eating.

Strictly speaking, calories-in and calories burned are still what matter most when it comes to body fat.

Eat fewer calories than you burn daily, and you will lose weight.

However, it is also true that the healthier and more energized your body is, the more all your body’s systems – including metabolism – operate efficiently.

Furthermore, there is an indication that inflammatory foods increase visceral fat padding that surrounds the body’s vital organs inside the abdomen.

Though counting calories is still what matters most, it might not be the only thing that matters.

Eating the right foods before bed can help you awaken happily refreshed.

Four key areas eating before bed will impact:

1. the appearance of your face the following morning
2. your energy level the following morning
3. your overall health
4. your weight

How Eating Before Bed Impacts Your Appearance

The skin on your face is an excellent barometer of whether or not what you ate last night agreed with you.

The less healthy a food is for your body, the more your face will show it.

In particular, look at your eyes and the tender tissue beneath. Is the area taut and bright, or puffy and darkish?

Look at the whites of the eyes themselves – are they brightly white and crisp, or dull glassy and with some redness? These can be important clues.

It seems that inflammatory foods wreak the most havoc on one’s face, so lean toward those anti-inflammatory foods that your body will respond to positively.

Best Food to Eat Before Bed

Why show up at work looking unnecessarily old, bloated, and tired? Your face is what communicates to others – on an unspoken level– “I bring my A-game.”

For dinner, I recommend super salads. If you’re a vegan you can top your salad with raw sprouted seeds and tempeh for extra protein, or if you’re a Paleo athlete you can top it with some diced, free-range chicken.

For dessert – if you worked out that day and if your calorie allotment still allows for it – good foods before bed can be:

• organic blueberries
• pecans
• coconut

For those over 30, it’s wise to gradually decrease the number of simple carbs you consume in the evening.

As we age, our bodies become less adept at handling excess carbohydrates without negative consequences.

I’ve maintained my fitness at age 58 by gradually substituting healthy snacks for less healthy ones.

If you are an athlete, you will have more eating options.

For example, if you did an intense strength-and-conditioning workout today – or are confident that you’re going to do one tomorrow – then you have more freedom for what you can eat after dark.

How Eating Before Bed Impacts Your Sustained Energy Level

In a perfect world, you eat your dinner as early in the evening as possible and don’t snack after dinner.

However, who among us lives in a perfect world?

Sometimes, having something a bit sweet after dinner helps us relax and feel sleepy so that we can have a good rest overnight and awaken with a high energy level the following day.

Those who workout consistently and intensely have to time their eating carefully because if they eat too early, they will suddenly become hungry just as they try to fall asleep.

Sounds like a little thing, but it can feel torturous.

Worse, athletes can also sometimes wake up in the middle of the night feeling ravenous – however, unless you exercise intensely every day, this probably won’t apply to you. If it does happen, I find a tablespoon of EFX Karbolyn powder stirred into a small glass of water that helps me to fall back asleep.

On days when I eat dinner early but go to bed late, and I worked out hard that day, I’ll cube half of a small apple and stir the cubes into a heaping tablespoon of sprouted almond butter, then top it all of with sprinkled cinnamon. It is currently my favorite post-dinner snack. And I feel great the next day.

Remember, much of the time when we wake up in the morning feeling “blah,” what’s going on is we have a food hangover.

How Eating Before Bed Influences Your Overall Health

There has been a growing body of evidence that calorie restriction is one of the keys to a long lifespan.

The general theory is that overnight your body likes to concentrate on healing and cell restoration.

However, we divert the body’s overnight focus from healing and toward digestion when we overeat too closely before bed (especially if we eat the wrong foods before bed).

“Calorie Restriction” doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

For example, if the average American eats over 3,000 calories daily, then 2,000 calories daily are comparatively restrictive but still enough to be comfortable.

But each person’s daily allotment of calories is different:

• how many calories do you think you should have on days when you do fitness training?
• what about on days you don’t exercise?

How Eating Before Bed Influences Your Weight

Your metabolism slows down at night.

Your body needs more quick-yet-sustained energy in the morning and afternoon; it doesn’t require as many calories at night if all you’re doing in bed is watching television, officing on your laptop, or sleeping.

“eating between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. followed by an 18-hour daily fast burned more fat and kept appetite levels more even throughout the day” – researcher Dr. Courtney Peterson

In my personal opinion, I think digestion works better when we’re upright rather than prone, so eating a lot right before reclining for the evening is counterintuitive.

What I eat the night before directly impacts how fat my belly looks the following morning.

“…we’ve learned that abdominal fat tissue is a hotbed of inflammation that pours out all kinds of inflammatory molecules into the body”   Dr. Peter Libby ~ WSJ

Worst Food to Eat Before Bed

Some foods are disadvantageous to eat before bed.

Inflammatory foods are the worst to eat before sleep:

• refined sugars
• grains (especially anything made from flour)
• dairy (unless you’re well-suited to it)
• alcohol
• fried anything

There is much debate currently among experts as to what constitutes good food and bad food.

In the end, I invite you to listen carefully to how your own body feels after you eat something, and – as always – I encourage you to consult with your doctor and nutritionist before making any radical changes to your diet.

What I’ve found to be true over the years is that if you want to look and feel better (than you ever have before in your life), you’ll need to find clever ways to sneak more vegetables into your daily diet.

Again, the big idea here is that deep sleep is the foundation of excellent health.

The body heals itself during sleep, so if you apply a bit of your focus toward improving the overall quality of your sleep, you will likely reap immediate rewards for your efforts.

A friend recently told me that he tried getting only 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night, and within a month, he started having seizures. He was surprised when his doctor told him that returning to his previous habit of 8 hours of sleep per night would likely solve the problem – and it did.

Why Deeper Sleep is Essential to Your Quality of Life

In our 24/7 world, it’s tempting to be cavalier about sleep, though underestimating the importance of quality sleep is risky to long-term health.

If you are over 50, your melatonin (a hormone that provides many benefits, including improved sleep) levels are probably not what they once were. You might consider supplementation, but proceed cautiously.

A high dosage of melatonin is not necessarily a better dosage. I find a mere 0.5 mg each night to be a good fit.

In the video below, Dr. Myles Spar revealed – during our recent interview – new tips on how to get a fantastic night’s sleep.

Interestingly, he invites us to consider the level of EMFs (electromagnetic fields) in our bedroom at night:

If you want to improve your health, improve your sleep.

Getting enough quality sleep consistently is essential to your well-being.

Your body heals and replaces damaged cells during sleep, and therefore one of the fundamental keys to enjoying stellar health and aging successfully is to sleep deeply each night:

• Mattresses need to be changed approximately every eight years. For some people, a new bed makes all the difference in getting restorative sleep. (Over time, your mattress builds dust mites, fungal spores, bacteria, human skin cells, dirt, sweat, and more. You’re languishing in all those allergens and micro-debris for 8 hours each day, 365 days a year – which could eventually become taxing to your immune system.)
• Modify your bedroom so that when the lights are turned off, the room is as dark as possible.
• A fan or white-noise machine can help reduce unwanted interruptions to your sleep cycle.
• Determine what the air quality is like in your bedroom – houseplants can be effective at removing airborne toxins.
• Beeswax earplugs are the most comfortable I’ve found for blocking noise.

Imagine being fast asleep before 10 pm each night and waking early each morning bright-eyed, feeling rested, and ready to jump out of bed and face life enthusiastically.

What you eat near the end of the day will either hinder your sleep or help it. So the trick is to avoid the foods that interfere with sound sleeping while having more of the foods that assist your sleep cycles:

1. Anything that stimulates your body, or dehydrates it, is off the list after 3 pm (goodbye wine, coffee, and cocoa)
2. Also off the list is any food that causes internal inflammation. To figure out what specific foods inflame you, just look at your face when you wake up in the morning, especially around the eyes. Morning puffiness in the face is often a giveaway that your body wasn’t fond of something you ate the night before.
3. And, of course, how your body feels, in general, is a clue. Any “food hangover” symptoms of sluggishness, and you may want to re-think one of your after-dark food staples.

…Not only is the quantity of sleep important but also the quality of sleep. Some people sleep 8 or 9 hours a night but don’t feel well-rested when they wake up because the quality of their sleep is poor” – helpguide.org

By experimenting with what you eat before bedtime, you’ll find that you can get better at waking up feeling – and looking – terrific.

Then, parlay that terrific morning into a terrific afternoon by preparing yourself an energy-sustaining, freshly made green smoothie for breakfast and/or lunch.

What foods a human physique enjoys for better sleep will vary from person to person, as we each have unique body chemistry.

More Foods to Help You Sleep Peacefully

If you’re trying to lose body fat, you may want to skip the post-dinner snacking altogether. However, I find that a snack after dinner helps me sleep better.

There are good snacks, and there are bad snacks.

Here are six snacks you can eat after 3 pm to help you sleep more peacefully:

1. Bananas

Bananas are a fairly good source of vitamin B6, which your body uses to make melatonin.

2. Jasmine Rice

I make my rice milk (instead of dairy milk) from organic jasmine rice. It’s really easy to make and tastes rich and delicious.

3. Organic Frozen Cherries

Cherries contain melatonin.

4. Whey Isolate Protein Powder

Whey protein has calcium, a natural sleep booster, without any pesky lactose that many bodies don’t enjoy.

Also, whey protein has the amino acids necessary for your body to create its melatonin, serotonin, and growth hormone. Especially good for days you exercise.

Whey can be inflammatory in some people, however, so don’t overdo the amount. Ensure you buy the kind that says “isolate” within the title.

5. Nutmeg

Nutmeg is a spice used for centuries for its calming and sleep-inducing properties.

6. Almonds

Almonds are a natural source of magnesium that promotes sleep and muscle relaxation in the human body.

Healthy Dessert Recipe for Better Sleep

This cherry-banana frozen dessert can help you to sleep.

You can combine all the previously discussed ingredients – simply toss them into a quality, high-powered blender to create a scrumptious and healthy frozen dessert that will help you get a better night’s sleep. How cool is that?

• 1/2 cup jasmine rice milk
• 1 teaspoon almond butter
• 1/2 peeled frozen banana
• 5 organic frozen cherries
• 1 teaspoon whey protein powder
• a dash of nutmeg
• a few ice cubes

Easy to make: just blend (start on low speed and build gradually) until it has the creamy texture of frozen yogurt. Serve in a bowl, and top with another dash of nutmeg. Enjoy!

If ever you’re feeling overwhelmed with this whole “getting healthier thing,” and you just want to know where to start, one of the best places to begin channeling your focus is your typical night’s sleep.

I encourage you to remember that one of the most helpful questions you can ever ask yourself is, “how can I sleep better each night?”

Chris Shugart of T-Nation explains, “Nutrition experts are always having the same argument: is fat loss just a matter of ‘calories in, calories out’ or do other things have a bigger long-term impact – like how food quality and macronutrient choices affect our hormones, eating behaviors, and ultimately our body compositions?”

Shugart cites research studies that have established:

• When two groups eat the same number of calories, the group that eats more protein as part of that caloric intake loses more fat and stays leaner.
• People who eat earlier in the day tend to be leaner and lose fat more successfully than breakfast skippers.
• Those who consume certain nutrients before, during, and after training get better results from their workouts, even if daily calories are the same.
• Night Owls VS Early Birds: morning types – those who wake up early and go to bed early – make better food choices than evening types – those who stay up late.

The Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism recently cited a research study on the metabolic effects of a late dinner in healthy volunteers:

• The study took ten men and ten women and had them eat dinner at either 6 pm or 10 pm;
• The early-eaters and the late-eaters both went to bed at 11 pm;
• Everyone’s meals were an identical composition of macronutrients;

• Researchers used body fat scans, activity trackers, hourly blood samples, and non-radioactive ingestible tracers on all the subjects;
• Results showed that fat-burning is reduced by 10% – and blood sugar levels are 20% higher – in late-eaters;
• Conclusion: eating a late dinner changes your metabolism negatively and promotes fat gain. And because of the higher blood glucose levels, long-term health and longevity are probably also negatively impacted in late-eaters.

Additional Sources about Eating Before Bed:

“research behind late dinners” https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgaa354/5855227?redirectedFrom=fulltext

“Chris Shugart on why body fat percentage is about more than just counting calories” https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-who-gets-fatter-night-owls-or-early-birds?

“dietary nutrient intakes and skin-aging appearance among middle-aged” http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/4/1225.long

“elderly more vulnerable to damage from diet of modern foods” http://paleoleap.com/paleo-for-seniors/

“soluble dietary fiber essential for good health” http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/fiber/art-20043983

“healing diets over age 60” http://www.phoenixhelix.com/2016/04/23/episode-43-never-too-late-healing-diets-over-age-60/

“your fatigue may be more than sleep deprivation” http://terrywahls.com/your-fatigue-may-be-more-than-sleep-deprivation/

“the new science behind America’s deadliest diseases” http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303612804577531092453590070

“making super salads” http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/the-super-salad-guide/

“calorie restriction and lifespan” http://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2010/10/Calorie-Restriction-Can-Be-Easy/Page-01

“sleep cycles” http://www.helpguide.org/life/sleeping.htm

“Eat before 2:00 pm” http://www.obesity.org/obesity/news/press-releases/eating-dinner-early-or-skipping-it-may-be-effective-in-fighting-body-fat