There’s one big reason you may still be holding on to excess weight even though you may not be eating too many calories through the day – and that’s night-time eating! Ideally, your last meal should be before 7 pm because when you eat too late into the night, most of the excess calories are going to be stored as fat. Emotional eating, extreme food deprivation during daytime, boredom, stress, are some common factors that can trigger night-time eating and that’s why it’s important to set a cut-off time over your last meal. Apart from causing digestive issues, gastric trouble, heartburn, and the most obvious outcome, “weight gain,” eating too late into the night can interrupt your sleep and what’s more, you wake up with a bloated tummy in the morning! Once in a while indulgence in the night with food is “okay,” but it’s a problem if it turns into a daily routine and then sets into a habit. As we have always maintained, taking scheduled strolls to the kitchen or refrigerator can sabotage your weight loss goals, more so at night, because most of these times, you aren’t even hungry and end up eating sugary, high-fat, and calorie-dense food. Late-night eating leads to weight gain and also increases the risk for chronic illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and even stroke. That’s because the body tends to store most of the calories as fat rather than burning it up as energy because it cannot metabolize most of the calories consumed at such a time. Since metabolism and other fat-burning hormones level dip as the evening approaches, and the body is getting ready to rest and recover, by consuming calories too late into the night, those calories are not going anywhere, and staying with you in the form of fat. Also, such people are more likely to develop insulin resistance which can pave way for type 2 diabetes later on. It also doesn’t help that night-time eaters have more cravings for sweet, salty and starchy foods in the evening. Through the evolution process, our ancestors learnt to eat really well in the evening so that most of those calories could be stored as fat as food was scarce in those days and there was no guarantee about when the next meal would be available the next day. But in the current way of life, it has translated into wrong and unhealthy eating habits. Your sweating out at the gym, untiringly counting every calorie, would go for a toss with a meal that’s too late in the night. So, here are some really clever ways to stop eating too late into the night.