Eating in the morning or afternoon vs eating in the evening

I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this question, but is food more 'useful' for the body when consumed in the morning or afternoon? The reason this might be true, is that the energy (calories) which are consumed can be used after these meal moments. An evening meal on the other hand will usually be a couple of hours before bed, possibly causing a leftover of energy. What happens to this 'leftover' energy? Is it turned to fat, excreted or just saved in the form of sugar to be used when you wake up?

Answer

There are studies that show eating more early in the day is beneficial as opposed to eating late. Which makes sense, you need much more energy through the day than through the night.

I believe there was a study on time restricted feeding where they found early time restricted feeding (not skipping breakfast) was better than when people skipped it and instead skipped dinner. Also I believe the blood sugar spikes are higher if you eat when the sun is down. If I’m not mistaken, Andrew Huberman had something to say about that in one of his podcasts.

As for leftover energy, I couldn’t give you a definite answer but as far as I know, it depends on many things, your metabolism, if you have muscles to repair and so on. If not, it goes to adipose tissue because it is the best store of energy.