Does Carb Backloading Help You Lose Weight? Science Says ...

Tracy asks:

What are your thoughts about carb backloading? Some are touting the benefits of eating carbs only in the evening.

There is some research to support the benefits of eating most of your carbs at night. But as is almost always the case, the devil is in the details!

One study involved several dozen police officers, both men and women, all of whom were overweight. During the six-month study, the subjects followed a reduced-calorie diet. They all ate the same amount of carbohydrates—about 50 percent of their daily calories. But one group ate most of their carbs at lunch and the other ate most of their carbs at dinner.

At the end of the study, those who ate their carbs in the evening felt less hungry throughout the day. They also ended up losing a bit more weight and body fat.

Can carb-backloading help you lose weight? 

It’s tempting to grab the headline here and run with it: Eat carbs at night and lose weight! But that summary, as appealing as it is, leaves out several key details.

The important thing to keep in mind here is that these subjects were eating a very low-calorie diet—just 1200 to 1500 calories a day.  As a result, they were losing weight fairly rapidly. (Something, by the way, that I do not recommend.) 

It’s tempting to grab the headline here and run with it: Eat carbs at night and lose weight! But that summary, as appealing as it is, leaves out several key details.

Although they were saving up their carbs to eat at the evening meal, they were still eating a relatively small amount: one to two cups of rice or pasta, for example. It’s also important to note that the meal plans were devoid of added sugars, snack foods, and most processed foods. Also, the starchy foods were eaten at the evening meal, not as a bedtime snack.

But, within this context, eating starchy foods in the evening appears to have reduced hunger, which probably made it a little easier to stick to this regimen.

All of the subjects in this study saw improvements in their insulin and fasting glucose levels, which you would expect to see anytime you have substantial weight loss. But the group who ate most of their carbs in the evening had slightly greater improvements.

What if you’re not dieting, though? Is there any advantage to eating all or most of your carbs in the evening? Maybe not.

Does carb-backloading improve blood sugar control?

A small trial of normal-weight men tested the effects of eating carbs early or late in the day without reducing the number of calories they ate. Not surprisingly, for those who had...

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