Can you eat dinner after 6:00 p.m. and lose weight?

A specialist dispelled a popular myth.

When the clock strikes six in the evening, many people trying to lose weight mentally close the refrigerator. The rule “do not eat after 6:00 p.m.” has long been considered one of the main prohibitions for those watching their weight. Late-night dinner has acquired almost as bad a reputation as a packet of cookies when it comes to gaining excess weight.

She tells Daily Mail about this: Emma Bardwell, a nutrition specialist.

Intermittent fasting is popular among both celebrities and scientists. It often involves finishing eating early, which puts late-night snacks on the list of habits supposedly contributing to weight gain. Strict time limits on eating have led many people to believe that any food eaten after sunset almost immediately shows up around the waist.

However, nutrition expert Emma Bardwell believes that this view oversimplifies the situation.

“The idea that eating after 6:00 p.m. automatically leads to weight gain is too simplistic. Your body does not suddenly start storing everything you eat as fat when the clock strikes six. The main factor in weight gain remains overall energy balance. If you regularly consume more energy—that is, more calories—than your body expends, you will most likely gain weight, regardless of whether those extra calories were eaten at 11 a.m. or 9 p.m. Similarly, you can have dinner after 6:00 p.m. every evening and still lose weight if you consistently remain in an energy deficit,” Bardwell says.

The author of the book “The 30 g Plan” and several nutrition bestsellers also believes that a strict cutoff time for the last meal does not work well for most people.

“In practice, the 6:00 p.m. rule makes very little sense. Someone who goes to bed at 9 p.m. has a completely different daily schedule from someone who works late, exercises in the evening, and goes to bed at midnight. In addition, it is important to remember that for many people, an evening meal is a time to socialize with family. It would be unreasonable to give it up simply because it does not fit the 6:00 p.m. rule,” the expert notes.

Meal timing does matter after all

Despite the absence of a “magic” hour after which food supposedly begins turning into fat, scientific evidence shows that meal timing may play a role in health.

“There is an interesting nuance here. Although 6:00 p.m. is not a magical metabolic deadline, there is growing evidence that meal timing can affect appetite, glucose metabolism, and weight regulation. We have internal circadian clocks, and metabolism does not work exactly the same way at every hour of the day. Overall, it appears that the body handles food somewhat better earlier in the biological day than late at night,” Bardwell says.

At the same time, she says, the benefits of eating earlier identified in clinical studies are small.

“A systematic review and meta-analysis of 29 randomized trials conducted in 2024 showed that shifting most calories to the first half of the day was associated with slightly greater weight loss. But the important word here is ‘slightly.’ Earlier calorie distribution was associated with approximately 1.75 kg of additional weight loss, while the researchers rated the certainty of the evidence as low. They concluded that the effect of meal timing is small and its clinical significance remains uncertain,” the specialist explains.

Other laboratory studies examined what happens when identical meals are moved to a later time. They showed noticeable changes in mechanisms related to hunger.

“There are also experimental studies of what happens when identical meals are moved to a later time. In a small controlled crossover study of adults who were overweight or obese, researchers kept calorie intake, diet, physical activity, sleep, and light exposure the same and changed only the timing of meals. Eating later increased hunger, altered leptin and ghrelin hormone levels in a direction that promoted greater hunger, and reduced energy expenditure while awake,” Bardwell explains.

At the same time, the expert emphasizes that the difference between having dinner at 5:30 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. should not be viewed as a cause of weight gain.

“I would not say that meal timing is completely irrelevant. But you are unlikely to gain weight simply because you had dinner at 7:30 p.m. rather than at 5:30 p.m.,” she says.

Why a late dinner can still lead to excess calories

According to Bardwell, one of the simplest reasons for the link between eating late and weight gain has less to do with the clock than with people's behavior in the evening.

“One of the simplest explanations for the link between eating late and weight gain is that evening calories often come from snacks and are additional calories. Let's be honest: most of us are not sitting on the couch at 9 p.m. eating an extra plate of broccoli because we're very hungry. It's cookies, chips, chocolate, wine, ice cream,” the expert warns.

In addition, people are more likely to feel tired toward the end of the day, which makes decisions about food more difficult, especially if they have eaten too little during the day.

“Someone who skipped breakfast, ate a tiny salad for lunch, and tried to be ‘good’ all day may quite understandably find themselves next to a jar of cookies in the evening. I see this very often in my clinical practice,” Bardwell notes.

Rather than constantly watching the clock, the specialist advises focusing on the regularity and composition of meals.

“For most people, I would recommend eating regular, balanced meals throughout the day with sufficient protein and fiber, rather than postponing most of their calories until late in the evening. If you can have dinner a couple of hours before bed and that fits your lifestyle—great. But if work, children, commuting, or evening workouts mean you only eat at 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., I really wouldn't worry about it,” she says.

At the same time, there are reasons unrelated to weight not to eat a very large amount of food immediately before bed. For some people, eating late can worsen sleep or intensify reflux symptoms.

Ultimately, Bardwell says, the results of attempts to lose weight are determined by the totality of daily habits, not by an arbitrary time restriction.

“In short, eating after 6:00 p.m. does not make you fat. There is some evidence that it may benefit the body to get more energy in the first half of the day and less late at night, but this effect appears to be relatively small. Your overall diet, calorie intake, protein, fiber, food quality, physical activity, and sleep matter far more than whether dinner was served at 5:55 p.m. or 6:05 p.m.”