Yes, it is a myth. Calories in versus calories out. It's as simple as that.
There may be some small differences in how efficiently your body digests food at night than during the day but 2pm vs. 11pm is an incredibly minor optimization. It's like optimizing your array structures when you should be using a hash. The only timing optimization I've heard of which has some scientific backing is the glycogen/metabolic window thought that's exploited for those trying to gain weight.
I think the reason you often hear about the "don't eat at night" advice is that it's easy to do which is what people want to hear. Most people will fallaciously rather follow the advice of "Eat ice cream at 2pm instead of 11pm" than the advice of "Don't eat ice cream at all."
The reason that "don't eat at night" will sometimes appear to work is that people will naturally eat less when you cut out a huge block of time in which they can't eat.
Whoever taught you that has poor understanding of biochemistry. Ever heard of futile cycles? Heat dissipation in the mitochondria? Hormonal effects of food? Anabolic/catabolic foods? Let alone the short, medium and long terms effects on the transcriptome.
The major thing you don't understand is that what you do now has effects on your gene transcription over the next few months. Small changes can make huge differences not just in the short term, but longer term as well - in terms of your bodies energy efficiency (which you want to decrease if you are wanting to lose weight) and hormonal state (testo/corto relationships et al).
There is tons of research on timing of nutrients. Transcriptome effects of nutrients. Short term hormonal effects. Thermic effect of foods. Etc etc. If one nutrient causes a change in energy out, then that nutrient has less of an effect than one that doesn't. Therefore, some nutrients affect energy balance differently than others.
Tell me this if you still don't believe me: are there any foods or combinations of foods/timing that may cause a statistical difference in energy output in the short, medium and long term in humans?
Sorry trapper but your entire post here wreaks of someone trying to "bully" the reader. You throw out a lot of esoteric terms w/ little to back it up.
That said - are we even arguing about the same thing? You responded to my post that addressed the "eating at night" myth and you're going off on effects that food has "over the next few months."
Perhaps. I am sick of this "Yes, it is a myth. Calories in versus calories out. It's as simple as that." being portrayed by people as a fact. It's just not so simple, and it's wrong.
I could write long winded responses with references. The problem is you end up explaining most of biochemistry along with it, as the rabbit hole is truly deep. And people still don't get it, because most people even with undergrad degrees in biochem don't (you don't get to see the rabbit hole until you reach postgrad at most unis and read tons of papers).
It's kind of like trying to explain why functional programming is better than OO to someone who just uses excel.
None of the terminology used should be esoteric if you have studied biochemistry. Apologise for the tone, it is really frustrating seeing someone promote the same old myth.
There may be some small differences in how efficiently your body digests food at night than during the day but 2pm vs. 11pm is an incredibly minor optimization. It's like optimizing your array structures when you should be using a hash. The only timing optimization I've heard of which has some scientific backing is the glycogen/metabolic window thought that's exploited for those trying to gain weight.
I think the reason you often hear about the "don't eat at night" advice is that it's easy to do which is what people want to hear. Most people will fallaciously rather follow the advice of "Eat ice cream at 2pm instead of 11pm" than the advice of "Don't eat ice cream at all."
The reason that "don't eat at night" will sometimes appear to work is that people will naturally eat less when you cut out a huge block of time in which they can't eat.