tips

[architec]

I have not seen any evidence that would make believe number 3. A late dinner may cause you to catabolize less fat initially when you sleep, but I would expect this would be offset by the extra fat you use while you fast between lunch and dinner, which are now further apart. In my personal experience, the only downside to eating before bed is digestion might disturb your sleep pattern. The other issue is many people I know who eat before bed have already had dinner and they're just overeating. This behavior will, of course, make you gain weight whatever time it takes place. If you think you can get away with overeating if you do it earlier in the day, you're quite mistaken.

Its not just a matter of how your body metabolizes what you taken in at nite, but the more serious effect is digestion in a prone position, which has been medically proven to cause indigestion which can lead to esoph. ulcers

[cyclingmo]

Good point, but I think still the majority of the work is done by the intestine's own wave-like motion to move the food, besides, it's not like the whole intestine is facing downwards, the food ends up traveling up and down equally. I dont think gravity has as big a role as they make it out to have.

[ThePrez]

This is what I learned from Mr. Street about eating before bed. 

Eat 2-3 hours before sleep.  Why?
Insulin is produced to digest food during the digestion process
Growth hormone (recovery) does not act while insulin is present
Growth hormone becomes present 2-3 hours in to sleep. So what does that mean?
If you eat before bed it can delay release of growth hormone.

[cyclingmo]

Insulin doesn't digest food, it helps store the digested sugars into liver.

[ThePrez]

Insulin doesn't digest food, it helps store the digested sugars into liver.

sorry, let me fix that