There are a few things more satisfying than waking up in the middle of the night with your tummy rumbling and finding a pint of ice cream in your freezer. Midnight snacking is a guilty pleasure of many women, but you may want to lessen your midnight cravings, as according to a study on Today.com, this habit may cause you to gain more weight faster.

Study co-author Carl Johnson and his colleagues from the Vanderbilt University conducted several laboratory tests to see how the disruption of the circadian clock affects metabolism. The circadian clock is your internal timekeeper that manages biochemical and physiological processes for a cycle of 24 hours.

Researchers found that midnight snacks disrupt the body’s natural blood glucose rhythms, causing tissues to ignore “insulin’s signal to take up sugar,” and take up fat instead. This backs up previous data that shows why many night shift workers gain weight and are more prone to diabetes.

Johnson explains, "Disrupting your biological clock leads to a disruption of metabolism such that there's more of a tendency to put on fat. It's not only what you eat but when you eat it that's important." This means that it doesn’t matter how light the meal is--you’ll retain more fat if you eat during the time when your body should already be resting.

In order to avoid disrupting your body clock, scientists recommend eating on time and trying to have early dinner which doesn’t sit too close to your sleeping schedule. Moreover, avoid taking those nocturnal trips to your refrigerator too often. Bingeing during bedtime is far less healthy than you think.

(Photo by Pinot Dita via Flickr Creative Commons)