When should be your last meal of the day and what should your last meal be? I’ll bet you think you know the answer, but it might not be so clear cut. Have you heard the saying “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper?” That’s not 100% true, and it’s largely a matter of preference and convenience, rather than hard physiology. So let’s discuss when the last meal of the day should be for fat loss vs. for muscle gain.

When Should Be Your Last Meal of the Day for Weight Loss?

It used to be said that if you’re trying to lose body fat, the best time to eat the last meal of the day is 3-5 hours before bedtime (with no snacks afterwards), and fairly light (or at least no bigger than the other meals). Why? The rationale was that your last 3-5 hours are probably not being spent in heavy exercise, so those extra calories will likely go towards fat stores.

Nowadays, we know better. We know that as far as fat loss is concerned, total calories are king. Not fat, or carbs, or toxins, or even the timing.

So whether you eat a large breakfast and small dinner, or small breakfast and large dinner makes no difference whatsoever, as far as fat loss is concerned, as long as daily calories are equal.

Last meal of the day to lose weight

Original source: here.

If you’re wondering “what time should you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner?” The ultimate answer is: it doesn’t matter. Whenever you want. Because again, total calories are king.

Which also brings up the point of “what time at night should you stop eating”? The ultimate answer to that is once you’ve hit your caloric “quota.” If you’re trying to get 2000 calories per day, and after dinner, you’re only at 1800, have a 200-calorie snack. However, if after dinner, you’re already at 2000, don’t have anything else after. So it’s less about the specific time that you should stop eating, and more about the total calories.

By the way, this article is not a recipe article, so if you’re looking for specific recipes, go here.

The Exception to That Rule 

There is an exception to the above rule, and it’s a fairly important one. In her book The Schwartzbein Principle, Dr. Diana Schwartzbein says that you don’t just need to lose weight to be healthy, you need to be healthy to lose weight.

So if you have high cortisol in the evenings, you should probably eat within 1-2 hours of bedtime, and that meal should be higher in carbohydrates.

Cortisol should be naturally high in the morning and go down throughout the day. But if your personal cortisol rhythm is such that it’s high all throughout the day or it’s just high in the evening, that’s not good. You know that you have high cortisol in the evenings if you have a hard time falling asleep.

That’s why a carbohydrate-rich meal later in the evening can work well to help you with your insomnia (although it’s just masking the problem. You should seek to naturally correct your cortisol rhythm so that you don’t need carbohydrates as a sleep aid). Simply put, carbohydrates help you lower your cortisol.

Will it help your body fat? No (but it won’t hurt it either). But it may help your sleep.

Last Meal of the Day for Bodybuilding (Trying to Gain Muscle)

If you’re a bodybuilder, trying to gain muscle, what time should be your last meal of the day be? As close to bedtime as possible (in fact, some crazy people known as professional bodybuilders will even wake up twice throughout the night just to eat), and it should be a big meal.

It would be a good idea to eat a combination of casein protein (unless you’re sensitive to casein, then avoid it) along with some fiber.

Why?

The reason is that casein is a protein that gets released very slowly (over a period of 5-8 hours), so it will decrease how much your muscles break down overnight. Fiber also helps slow down how quickly something enters the bloodstream, which prolongs how long that protein stays in the blood.

Lastly, if you’re a person who won’t put on fat no matter what you eat (yes, these people exist), I’d also make your last meal rich in carbohydrates. They “open up the gates” to the muscles more effectively than protein and fiber by themselves.

By the way, where can you find casein? With the exception of protein powders, you don’t really find it by itself in food. It’s usually bundled with another protein called “whey”, and the best source of it is milk. We’re talking about whole milk. If you’re trying to gain muscle, don’t even think about skim milk or 2% milk. This is the exact strategy that we used with Oren to help him gain 20 pounds of muscle.

And if you’re looking for muscle gain recipes, just go here.

Last meal of the day for bodybuilding