After 5, 6, or 7 PM – it doesn’t matter. You can eat 6,000 calories (1 Snickers, 1 liter of soda, 1 whole pizza, and a pack of chips). Do you think that with a need of 2,200 kcal, these 6,000 kcal won’t be deposited as fat on your face, stomach, and arms? Of course they will be deposited, because energy can’t just magically evaporate into thin air. It needs to go somewhere, and if you don’t spend it, your body will save it for the future, and fat is the only way to save energy in the long term.

We remind you: the body analyzes the energy balance for 3-4 days. It evaluates the amount of calories and proteins, fats, carbohydrates received. If there were few of them, it increases appetite. Therefore, the first 3-4 days on a diet are easy, even on a very low-calorie one. It is quite possible to endure 3-4 days of fasting.

It doesn't matter when you eat food. In the context of losing weight, a deficit for 3-4 days, a week and a month is important. Therefore, if it's 9:00 PM and you're hungry as a wolf from a stable expression, don't be afraid to exceed the established caloric content. For example, by 250 kcal. Yes, there will be no deficit today, but you will easily get through the day and will not cause a hormonal imbalance due to prolonged hunger, and life will not be torment.

You will need to distribute the extra 250 calories you ate over the remaining days of the week, or simply eat 250 less tomorrow. You can write them down in your diary the next day so you don't forget. The point is a weekly/monthly calorie deficit.

Is it possible to eat at night if you are losing weight?
Let's answer the question with a question: Why not? The main counterargument is the weakness of the digestive system. It is unclear where the stereotype came from that the body rests and sleeps at night, therefore it cannot absorb calories, as a result of which it stores them as fat.

However, even during sleep the brain is active, not to mention the major repairs and metabolic processes inside the body. What are the arguments against eating late?

Decreased salivation
Decreased upper esophageal sphincter pressure
Decreased number of food contractions of the esophagus
Decreased liver activity and its enzymes
Suppression of growth hormone secretion by food (insulin)
Now let's look at a couple of studies and a physiology textbook. What do we see?

Gastric juice is most actively secreted between 22:00 and 02:00
Contractions of the esophagus are stronger at night than during the day, which makes it easier to digest food.
During sleep, no metabolic processes slow down.

Regarding growth hormone: yes, insulin counteracts its production, but the problem is relevant with constant food intake throughout the night period. In addition, your own level of growth hormone does not affect weight loss or quality of life, as is commonly believed. You can lose weight from growth hormone only with its injection, and this is expensive and dangerous.

Why can't you eat at night?
The stereotype didn't just appear out of nowhere. At first, it was excellent advice that limited people from overeating and the corresponding excess of calories. According to human physiology, hunger is most pronounced at night. By banning food at night, nutritionists and doctors would easily limit the caloric content of the average person's diet. Alas, now such a myth creates more discomfort than benefit.

Let's say a few words about hunger. In order not to wake up at night from hunger and to allow the digestive system to process everything eaten during the day, the body increases appetite immediately before sleep and immediately after waking up. Thus, the general feeling of hunger is distributed into peaks and declines, according to circadian rhythms.

It is reasonable to listen to the body and give it the necessary food with calories. Physiological hunger does not just happen. A prolonged feeling of hunger, including before bedtime, has a negative effect on the balance of leptin and insulin, and leads to an increase in corticoid hormones.

Hunger rhythms and peaks depend on your routine, but if you follow one routine, hunger will manifest itself closer to evening and bedtime, and immediately upon waking. If you are disgusted by the sight of food in the morning, it means that you have slept past your peak awakening according to circadian rhythms, but there is nothing to worry about.

Final Words
Why can't you eat at night? - this question is not relevant these days, because it has been scientifically proven that the body does not care at all what time of day you received this or that portion of food. The main thing is a deficit of 3-4 days or more.