How much should you eat for dinner? The harm of eating too late

   Dinner is often a time for family reunion or personal relaxation. However, many people ignore the importance of a reasonable intake of dinner and the time of meal, both of which are closely related to our physical health.

1. How much should you eat for dinner

Follow the principle of "70% to 80% full"

Generally speaking, it is most appropriate to eat 70% to 80% full for dinner. The feeling of 70% to 80% full is that the eating speed is significantly slowed down. Although you can eat more, you will not feel uncomfortable when you put down the bowl and chopsticks, and your stomach will not feel excessively bloated.

This degree of fullness can not only meet the body's basic energy needs at night, but also will not cause too much burden on the stomach.

Because the body's metabolic rate at night will slow down compared to the daytime, the body consumes less energy, and eating too much can easily lead to calorie accumulation, which is converted into fat and stored, and then cause obesity.

Fine adjustment according to personal situation

However, the specific amount of food for dinner also needs to be adjusted according to personal situation. For example, manual laborers consume a lot of physical energy during the day, so they can eat more high-quality protein-rich foods, such as lean meat, fish, beans, etc., at dinner than mental laborers to supplement the body's needs, but they should not be too full overall.

For the elderly, due to the decline of digestive function, dinner should control the amount of food, and the food should be mainly easy to digest, such as soft and glutinous rice porridge, steamed eggs, vegetable soup, etc., and avoid eating too much greasy and hard food to avoid indigestion, food accumulation and other problems.

Children are in the growth and development stage, and dinner should ensure balanced nutrition, including appropriate amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals, but considering the importance of night sleep to physical growth, it is not advisable to eat too much to avoid affecting sleep quality.

2. The harm of dinner too late

Affecting sleep quality

When dinner is too late, food cannot be digested and emptied in time in the stomach, and the stomach needs to continue to "work".

The physiological activities such as gastrointestinal peristalsis and the secretion of digestive juices will stimulate the brain through nerve conduction, making the brain in a relatively excited state, interfering with the normal sleep rhythm of the human body, and causing sleep problems such as difficulty falling asleep, dreaming, and waking up easily.

Long-term lack of sleep will not only make people feel listless, inattentive, and inefficient the next day, but also damage the body's immune system and make the body more susceptible to illness.

Increase the burden on the stomach and intestines

Under normal circumstances, the stomach and intestines also need to rest at night to maintain their normal functions. However, if dinner is eaten too late, gastric emptying is delayed, gastric acid will continue to be secreted, acting on the gastric mucosa for a long time, and it is easy to cause gastritis, gastric ulcers and other stomach diseases.

In addition, the intestines should be in a relatively quiet state at night. Eating too late will force it to continue to peristalsis to digest food, disrupt the biological clock of the intestines, affect the balance of beneficial flora in the intestines, and then lead to intestinal dysfunction, abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and other discomfort symptoms.

Easy to cause fat accumulation

After eating, the human body will increase blood sugar and insulin levels as food is digested and absorbed. If dinner is too late and close to bedtime, the amount of physical activity will be greatly reduced, and the excess calories consumed cannot be consumed in time, it is easier to convert into fat and accumulate in the body, especially in the abdomen and buttocks.

If this continues for a long time, the risk of obesity will increase dramatically, and obesity is closely related to many chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension, which seriously threatens physical health.

Impact on body metabolism

Eating dinner too late will also interfere with the body's normal metabolic process. The biological clock regulates the activity rhythm of various organs and systems in the body, including metabolism. Eating too late disrupts the biological clock, causing abnormal metabolic functions such as fat metabolism and blood sugar regulation.

For example, insulin sensitivity decreases, the body's ability to use glucose decreases, and blood sugar fluctuations increase. In the long run, the chance of suffering from metabolic syndrome is greatly increased, further increasing health risks.

In order to maintain good health, we must pay attention to the reasonable arrangement of dinner. Try to advance the dinner time to 3-4 hours before going to bed, such as eating around 6-7 o'clock in the evening.

Control the amount of food to 70% full, and make appropriate adjustments according to personal age, occupation, and physical condition; in terms of food selection, mainly vegetables, fruits, coarse grains and other foods rich in dietary fiber and easy to digest, with an appropriate amount of high-quality protein, reduce the intake of high-fat, high-sugar, and high-salt foods.

Follow these guidelines and make dinner a way to nourish your body rather than harm it.