Does sleeping after a meal lead to weight gain

Eating too close to when you go to sleep can lead to acid reflux, indigestion, poor sleep, and even weight gain. Experts recommend waiting two to three hours after eating solid foods before going to sleep. If you have to eat a meal and go to bed shortly after, stick to something light and low-fat and try to stay upright for at least 30 minutes before you head off to sleep.

Is It Bad to Sleep Right After Eating?

Ninety-one percent of Americans snack between dinner and bedtime, most often with ice cream, cookies, chips, popcorn, and candy. While a bedtime snack is typically harmless, going to sleep on a stomach full of snacks or a heavy meal can be detrimental to your sleep quality and your overall health.

When you go to sleep, your body is focused on rest and recovery, not digestion. Eating right before bed or at night can disrupt the digestive process, leading to discomfort, stomach issues, and a compromised metabolism. Over time, this can contribute to weight gain and related health conditions.

“The size of the meal matters. Larger meals are generally more challenging for the digestive system to process, especially in a reclined position,” Madathupalayam Madhankumar, MD, a surgical gastroenterologist at iCliniq, told Verywell.

Health Risks of Eating Before Bed

Going to sleep after a snack isn’t a huge issue, but dozing off after a large meal can lead to a range of symptoms, especially for people with conditions like hiatal hernia, obesity, and sleep apnea, Jesse Houghton, MD, board-certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology and Senior Medical Director of Gastroenterology at the Southern Ohio Medical Center, told Verywell.

Here are just a few of the problems you might find yourself dealing with if you eat too close to bedtime.

• Indigestion and acid reflux: A reclined position makes it possible for stomach acid to move up into the esophagus, contributing to indigestion or acid reflux. Madhankumar said this feels like a discomfort or burning sensation throat.
• Sleep disruptions: If you experience acid reflux, your sleep quality may also be impacted. Eating a heavy meal right before bed can also keep your metabolism working hard and possibly raise your body temperature higher than is optimal for sleep, Jade Wu, PhD, board-certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist and Mattress Firm Sleep Advisor, told Verywell.
• Weight gain: Over time, the effects of consuming excess calories just before your metabolism is supposed to slow down for the night can contribute to weight gain. This can increase the risk of other health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and high cholesterol, Houghton said.

A 2015 study showed that night shift workers who consumed more of their total daily calories after dinner had higher rates of overweight, abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, and high cholesterol levels than daytime workers, and also had health concerns like impaired blood sugar (glucose) tolerance and decreased kidney function.

When Should You Stop Eating Before Sleep?

When to stop eating before bed depends on what you plan to eat. Different foods and beverages take different amounts of time to pass from the stomach to the small intestine, Houghton said.

Clear liquids like water and juice pass through the stomach the fastest. Full liquids, like protein shakes and coffee with creamer, will take longer. Solid foods, especially high-fat ones, are the slowest to digest.

“The longer after eating that you lay down to sleep, the better,” Houghton said, adding that a good rule of thumb is to wait at least a half hour after drinking fluids and at least two to three hours after eating solid foods before you tuck in for the night.

That two- to three-hour wait gives your digestive system enough time to process a meal effectively, making it less likely that you’ll experience acid reflux or indigestion, said Madhankumar.

What If You Have to Eat Before Sleep?

If work or scheduling puts you in the position of having to eat a late-night meal and go to sleep shortly after, keep it light and simple.

“Smaller, low-fat meals are best, as they are less likely to distend the stomach and are easier to digest,” Houghton said.

Madhankumar suggests choosing easy-to-digest foods, like lean proteins (grilled chicken, fish, and turkey), as well as veggies, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and legumes. Try to avoid foods that are heavy, spicy, or high-fat, all of which can contribute to acid reflux, indigestion, and discomfort.

Drinking water can also improve digestion, but overdoing it can lead to reflux and regurgitation (not to mention prompting a middle-of-the-night bathroom trip).

If you can, stay upright for at least 30 minutes after you eat to reduce the risk of dealing with acid reflux when you go to bed, Madhankumar said. A little bit of light physical activity, such as taking a short walk, can also help with digestion.

What This Means For You

Eating too close to when you go to sleep can lead to acid reflux, indigestion, poor sleep, and even weight gain. Experts recommend waiting two to three hours after eating solid foods before going to sleep. If you have to eat a meal and go to bed shortly after, stick to something light and low-fat and try to stay upright for at least 30 minutes before you head off to sleep.

Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Nightfood. New survey reveals 79% of Americans experience increased nighttime cravings with the end of daylight saving time.
2. Manoogian ENC, Chaix A, Panda S. When to eat: the importance of eating patterns in health and disease. J Biol Rhythms. 2019;34(6):579-581. doi:10.1177/0748730419892105
3. Kinsey AW, Ormsbee MJ. The health impact of nighttime eating: old and new perspectives. Nutrients. 2015;7(4):2648-2662. doi:10.3390/nu7042648
4. Sleep Foundation. GERD and sleep.

By Alyssa Hui-Anderson
Hui-Anderson is a health news writer and former TV news reporter. She was the 2020 recipient of the Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association Jack Shelley Award.

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Will I Gain Weight If I Sleep After Eating

February 20, 2007

Does sleeping after a meal lead to weight gain?

Jeremy Barnes, professor of health promotion at Southeast Missouri State University, replies.

Body weight depends on a multitude of factors, and, as you might imagine, both lifestyle and genetics play critical roles. The key to weight control is balancing energy intake with energy expenditure, a relationship that is often referred to as the energy balance equation.

Energy input comes from the food and drink we consume and is usually measured in kilocalories (kcal). The U.S. Department of Agriculture assigns calorie levels based on an individual’s sex, age and activity level. The intake quantities range from 3,000 kcal for active males between 19 and 20 years of age to 2,000 kcal for sedentary males 76 and up. (The corresponding numbers for females are 2,400 kcal and 1,600 kcal, respectively.) When energy intake is greater than energy expenditure the body will store excess energy as fat, regardless of whether those excess kcals came from fat, carbohydrate, protein or even alcohol.

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Energy expenditure consists of three components: resting metabolic rate (BMR), which is the energy your body uses to maintain normal function throughout the day; diet induced thermogenesis (DIT), the energy needed to digest, absorb, transport, metabolize and store food and drink; and physical activity. In the sedentary individual BMR typically accounts for 60 to 75 percent of energy expenditure, DIT is responsible for about 10 percent and physical activity between 10 and 25 percent. (As you might expect, active individuals will have a greater proportion of energy expenditure accounted for by physical activity.) Our bodies are expending energy all the time. Even while asleep the body requires energy to fuel the multitude of complex functions required to keep us alive.

Since one pound of body fat is equivalent to about 3,500 kcal of energy, the energy balance equation suggests that an increase in food intake or a decrease in energy expenditure equal to 3,500 kcal will result in a weight gain of one pound. Conversely, a weight loss of one pound will result for every 3,500 kcal worth of food not eaten or an equal amount of increased expenditure. Although this is a good rule of thumb for predicting either weight gain or loss, there are considerable individual differences that the energy balance equation does not account for. Weight change is a relatively slow process—taking place over longer periods than just mere minutes, hours or days. Weight gain, for instance, involves a long-term state where caloric intake exceeds expenditure.

And thus the answer to a question like the one posed here cannot really be answered unless we know all the other aspects of an individual’s lifestyle. It is true to say that had someone gone for a brisk walk rather than, say, taking an afternoon nap, they would have utilized more energy for the duration of the walk.

Sleeping itself, however, is not the cause of weight gain. As we have seen above, the key is really energy balance over extended periods of time. Unfortunately, in the U.S. many people are consuming more energy than their bodies can use (or than they are using), which has led to a situation of epidemic proportions where over one third of all adults are now obese.

Interestingly, there have been a few recent studies indicating that individuals who either suffer from sleep deprivation or get only limited amounts of sleep may be more susceptible to weight gain than those who get adequate sleep. It appears that lack of sleep leads to decreased release of the hormone leptin—higher levels of which confer a feeling of fullness, whereas low levels can result in feelings of hunger. In addition, sleep loss increases levels of the hormone grehlin, which also makes people feel more hungry.