Eating + Zzzzz = Weight Gain: Reality or Myth?

So every day since the end of Daylight Saving Time, I have:

• had trouble sleeping/falling asleep
• woken up later for work than I should have
• missed eating anything for breakfast -- or even lunch
• gotten home from work sometime between 4-6pm without having ingested anything other than a 8 ounces of water and students' germs
• consumed a small meal on my couch, and then
• promptly fallen asleep on the couch, only to be roused an hour or two later to run to the gym.

This has been the pattern since... the beginning of March? I have been extremely irritable since then, so obviously this lifestyle has been taking its toll. However, I've also been warned by well-meaning friends and family that I should break the habit, especially that of eating and then sleeping, because it will lead to weight gain and my adventures at the gym will all be for naught.

I am a notorious food coma victim, and in the last year I have also gained a significant amount of weight, relative to my average yearly weight gain (which, until last year, had been approximately 0 lbs./year). So I began to wonder -- does sleeping after you eat actually lead to weight gain? I conducted some very superficial research, and here is what I came up with:

"..it's safe to assume that one's weight reflects the balance between calories burned and calories consumed over time, regardless of when you choose to eat."

- Dr. Julie K. Silver, M.D., Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School; gather.com

"It does not matter what time of day you eat. It is what and how much you eat and how much physical activity you do during the whole day that determines whether you gain, lose, or maintain your weight. No matter when you eat, your body will store extra calories as fat. "

-Dr. Rob Shmerling, Harvard Medical School; intelihealth.com

"Sleeping itself, however, is not the cause of weight gain. As we have seen above, the key is really energy balance over extended periods of time."

-Jeremy Barnes, professor of health promotion at Southeast Missouri State University; Scientific American.

A couple other sources also confirmed this information (answers.google.com).Apparently, the general consensus is that:

1. There isn't a substantial amount of evidence that suggests eat + sleep = weight gain
2. It doesn't matter so much when you eat, but how much you eat, and how much energy you burn a day
3. The most damage eating and then sleeping can do is give you stomach problems that lead to lack of sleep, which in turn leads to a higher likelihood of weight gain

Now the next time you fall victim to a food coma, you don't have to worry so much if you're watching your weight. Which is good, since worrying and stress are also significant factors in weight gain. :)