Absolute claims are a heavy burden — we get stuck in one place, rather than exploring our possibilities.  The “don’t eat late” myth has caught many people and continues to harm healthy progress.  I’ve found trials that support eating early and then concluding your eating earlier in the day and those that show an advantage in late eaters, who delay their first meal of the day and  finish their eating for the day a little later.  On the surface of these studies there is no super impressive difference between the two.  But none of these trials  on offer are “perfect, real life studies”, there are so many compounding variants that destroy the credibility of a real life scenario.    

“Eating late will result in fat gain” is such a sweeping statement, that needs to be broken down from the simplicity that some may read into this.  My inclination is to first work towards having an eating window of not more than twelve hours in any give twenty four period time.  In the beginning of a fat loss journey, this alone is perhaps more powerful than concentrating on exactly what time your twelve hour window of non-eating will fall.  Ideally majority of it will fall whilst your sleep as this just make sense.  If you’re metabolically healthy and flexible enough to shorten your eating window - again I suspect that the timing of this will not be paramount to your fat loss goals.  

The impact of the decision of when to eat and when not to eat could perhaps be better served by looking at other proponents that currently support or are not yet supporting your fat loss journey.   We know that sleep, stress and social interaction are paramount to health and health is needed to loose body fat safely and with longevity.  If sharing a breakfast with family or friends is a ritual that sets you up to manifest an amazing day ahead - then your answer is there, until things change and perhaps the children get older and it switches to a dinner ritual that becomes the conclusion to one successful day and the momentum into the flow of the following day.   I don’t think nature will allow us to have it both ways - we cannot get the health we crave whilst enjoying a constant trickling (or stuffing) of fuel twenty-four seven.  

My own lifestyle usually dictates that I eat my first meal later in the morning and that I also largely pull up my last meal about two hours before bed.  However to keep my body guessing I usually eat earlier one day a week, within 2 hours of waking and eat just that little bit later in the evening.  I have played around with my own goals and timing of food and my blood work and body composition are enjoying this regime for now.  

My take is that the main reason why eating at later at night might hinder fat loss is linked to an increase in your daily caloric intake; If you are eating later in the evening, you may just be bandaging your waning energy.  If we start awake at night to work or to study or even just to watch TV, the impulse to eat is driven out of the fight of sleepiness rather than hunger.  If you are eating when your not hungry, there is a big likelihood that you are not going to shed fat but rather add to your fat storage.  On top of that, if your are going to bed full you are not going to get a nourishing deep restful sleep as your body will still be spending much of it’s repair time in digesting your late meal.  

My suspicion - Eating late won’t make you gain fat, unless it drives you to eat more.

Our society loves black or white assessments and statements.  Even rebels often love to be told definitively, what to eat and when to eat, to achieve their best body composition.  Many of my clients have jumped on hyped bandwagons, following sweeping claims that just do not fit their lifestyle and have fallen deeper because of this.  The stakes are high here. Yes, it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction when the deck is stacked against you. Yes, I know you’re busy.  That is why Body Fuel Nutrition and Movement exists! For busy people like you.  So you have a practitioner who you can trust to dig into the science mumbo jumbo and push beyond the misinformation.  

My inclination is to head deeper than final declarations of yes or no.   Hacking your nutrition, body composition, happiness and purpose requires leaning into a deeper understanding of possibilities for you, as you are your own experiment of one.