If you visit most fitness clubs and claim you’re losing fat by eating carbs at night, most people are going to look at you like you just insulted their mother. It’s basically been a fitness industry law that eating carbs at night will make you fat, but this simply is not the truth. Carbs do not make you fat; eating too many calories makes you fat. By eating the majority of your carbs at night you can lose more fat than eating these same carbs in the morning or early afternoon.
Physical trainer Sean Hyson explains, “Eating carbs in the morning will cause more of them to be stored as fat than if you waited till 4 o’clock in the afternoon or later, when insulin sensitivity declines.” When you eat carbs during high insulin sensitivity you’re blocking fat from being used as an energy source. You need carbs in a healthily diet, so by eating carbs at night you’re getting their nutritional benefits, while maximizing fat loss. Remember, all these carbs you get to eat at night are complex carbs, meaning they are made of three or more sugar molecules linked together.
Complex carbs are found in vegetables, nuts, fruits, seeds and grains. The body takes longer to break down these types of carbs, so they provide you with energy for longer periods of time than simple carbs do. Waiting till night to eat your complex carbs gives you more flexibility with which types of complex carbs you get to eat. However, for best fat loss results I recommend getting a variety of each complex carb food type. This means you’re going to be eating mainly complex carbs such as whole-grains, legumes, starchy vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Making sure you’re eating a variety of these types of carbs at night is going to lead to better and faster weight loss.
