10 Nighttime Habits that Can Make You Gain Weight

Dinner is your largest meal of the day

Americans tend to eat their largest meal of the day at dinner, but that could be a one-way ticket to extra pounds. “Loading up the body with calories that it never has an opportunity to burn translates to weight gain,” says Michael Russo, MD, a general surgeon specializing in bariatric surgery at Memorial Care Center for Obesity at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. Instead, try making your largest meal a high-protein breakfast or lunch instead. “You’ll feel more energized throughout the day and give your body the time it needs to effectively use the calories, instead of storing them while you sleep,” he adds. A study from Tel Aviv University, published in the journal Obesity, suggests racking up as many as 700 calories at breakfast—as long as you eat less at lunch and dinner. In their study, obese women who ate that jumbo breakfast (and then 500 calories for lunch and as few as 200 for dinner) for 12 weeks lost double the amount of weight and double the inches off their waist compared to a group of obese women who ate the same number of calories, just in reverse order (200 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch and 700 at dinner).

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