Maintaining a balanced diet is no easy feat! So dietitian and founder of "Nutritious Life," Keri Glassman, stopped by the show to answer some commonly asked questions about nutrition — like whether or not you should count calories and if organic meat is worth the price.
Another FAQ? How late is too late at night to eat?
"What I usually tell people is, it's not about the time of night," Keri says. "It's really about your schedule."
If you eat breakfast early in the morning, like at 6 a.m., you might have dinner around 7 p.m., Keri continues. But if you're not having your first meal of the day until 10 a.m., your dinner might be at 9 p.m. "And that's perfectly fine," she says.
The problem is that when people eat late at night, they tend to eat extra calories — or "emotional calories," as the nutritionist puts it. Foods like chips, cookies your kids made or leftovers from dinner can "not only add on extra, unhealthy calories but disrupt your sleep," she points out.
So if you are truly hungry and you want to eat something at night, Keri suggests choosing something that's going to work for you. She recommends a banana with a little bit of almond butter as a late-night treat. "Bananas have magnesium, which is calming, and they can also help increase the production of melatonin (the natural hormone for sleep)," Keri says.
A little bit of tart cherry juice has also been shown to help improve your sleep due to a little bit of natural melatonin, according to the nutritionist.
Who knew?
