Hunger Pangs at night

jokoh92

During the day I am fine, but at night its like attack of the ghrelin. I have been eating lunch at 12, a small snack at 5 and then dinner at 7 or 8. And maybe a piece of fruit, yogurt, or granola bar before bed with a bottle of water.

I eat 1200-1400 cals on days I don't workout or at least try to and 1500-1800 cals on days I do workout, but no matter what day at night I crave and I get headaches.

What can I do to stop the pangs?

mousie1973

how much under in cals are you a day... if you are significantly under in cals, eat more.

CassidyScaglione

Eat more.

If you are waking up in the night from hunger then you are obviously not eating enough.

Use this: http://dailyburn.com/life/health/how-to-calculate-bmr/

Calculate your BMR and TDEE and make sure that your daily net is between those numbers.

akamran1

A tablespoon of peanut butter as the snack before bed has worked for me in the past. It hasn't happened in a while now, so it may have been a stage I was going through. If you like yogurt, maybe try a small amount of full fat Greek yogurt -- I think it is the fat and protein that works.

Good luck!

bubble_wrap0428

You shouldn't be starving going to bed. Eat a small snack with protein. I mean going to be slightly hungry is a good sign but not to cause you to be uncomfortable.

MelaniaTrump

I had mozzarella cheese stick tonight. Look for a protein snack. A glass of low fat milk could also do the trick.

srturco

Are you getting 35% of your cals from protein?
are you meeting or exceeding your daily fiber?

from my own experience i know high protein and high fiber works for me

I don't even look at a refined carb -- beans, veggies, fruit and sweet potatoes are my carbs

kmwond

I have also been having this problem. Once I started consuming a bit more calories or ate something low fat before bed I've stopped the late night "snacking" if you will.

sew205

Half an ounce of cheese before bed.

SonyaCele

i make tons of vegetables or salad with dinner, and just snack on them all night.

cubfan26

Hi Jokoh. This is a huge one for me. In fact, I guess that most of my extra weight comes from late-night and middle of the night eating or binging. I am on my fourth day here and each of the first three days I had to fight the battle you described. I have not given in yet to my evening hunger. It helps me to remind myself each day, that in order to meet my goals, I will need to accept that I might not always feel satisfied with the amount of food in my belly. So what I do at night when hunger strikes is to make a cup of tea and pour myself a tall glass of water and remind myself once again that feeling a bit hungry is better than feeling out of control and desperate. I hope this helps! Hang in there and keep the things that work while you try to solve the things that do not work.

jokoh92

mousie1973 wrote: »

how much under in cals are you a day... if you are significantly under in cals, eat more.

CassidyScaglione wrote: »

Eat more.

If you are waking up in the night from hunger then you are obviously not eating enough.

Use this: http://dailyburn.com/life/health/how-to-calculate-bmr/

Calculate your BMR and TDEE and make sure that your daily net is between those numbers.

Thanks! I changed it to 1580cals/day which would be losing 1 lb a week and I think this will make me feel less famished at night or I hope. I will see how this week goes.

jokoh92

akamran1 wrote: »

A tablespoon of peanut butter as the snack before bed has worked for me in the past. It hasn't happened in a while now, so it may have been a stage I was going through. If you like yogurt, maybe try a small amount of full fat Greek yogurt -- I think it is the fat and protein that works.

Good luck!

Thanks, I think I will try the yogurt thing because peanut butter makes me binge.

jokoh92

bubble_wrap0428 wrote: »

You shouldn't be starving going to bed. Eat a small snack with protein. I mean going to be slightly hungry is a good sign but not to cause you to be uncomfortable.

JanetYellen wrote: »

I had mozzarella cheese stick tonight. Look for a protein snack. A glass of low fat milk could also do the trick.

I will definitely try to find something with a good bit of protein to eat before bed. Protein does seem to do the trick in the past. So I will try to eat Greek yogurt or peanuts or cheese like you said. Thanks for the tips!

jokoh92

srturco wrote: »

Are you getting 35% of your cals from protein?
are you meeting or exceeding your daily fiber?

from my own experience i know high protein and high fiber works for me

I don't even look at a refined carb -- beans, veggies, fruit and sweet potatoes are my carbs

Yes I definitely need to eat more complex carbs and stack up on the protein. I take fiber supplements and I eat at least two pieces of fruit a day. I know I need to eat more, but I'm on a tight budget.

jokoh92

kmwond wrote: »

I have also been having this problem. Once I started consuming a bit more calories or ate something low fat before bed I've stopped the late night "snacking" if you will.

Thanks. I have increased my calorie intake and will try to consume something like yogurt which is low fat right before bed. Hopefully that will help.

jokoh92

cubfan26 wrote: »

Hi Jokoh. This is a huge one for me. In fact, I guess that most of my extra weight comes from late-night and middle of the night eating or binging. I am on my fourth day here and each of the first three days I had to fight the battle you described. I have not given in yet to my evening hunger. It helps me to remind myself each day, that in order to meet my goals, I will need to accept that I might not always feel satisfied with the amount of food in my belly. So what I do at night when hunger strikes is to make a cup of tea and pour myself a tall glass of water and remind myself once again that feeling a bit hungry is better than feeling out of control and desperate. I hope this helps! Hang in there and keep the things that work while you try to solve the things that do not work.

I will definitely have to start making tea at night. I'm not really a big tea drinker, but I notice on nights I do drink tea, I am a lot less hungry, so I guess I will have to start doing that more.

Shells918

I have light hot cocoa. Only 25 calories,4 carbs and 2 grams of protein. I feel like I'm having something very sweet but not hurting my calorie/carb intake too badly.

EvgeniZyntx

Here is a quick overview of your last 8 weeks, hope you don't mind the analysis, it does show that most of your calories come from carbs. You may want to try towards a higher protein/fat diet if you are finding satiety issues. Hope that helps.

ilex70

Nifty chart EvgeniZyntx.

Did you use an export program of some sort? All I see under my reports tab is individual charts for different macros.

TFS.

snowflake954

EvgeniZyntx wrote: »

Here is a quick overview of your last 8 weeks, hope you don't mind the analysis, it does show that most of your calories come from carbs. You may want to try towards a higher protein/fat diet if you are finding satiety issues. Hope that helps.

THIS is a beautiful chart. I admire your expertise.

EvgeniZyntx

@ilex70 I wrote an export tool and used part of it. You can find the details here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927

ilex70

@ilex70 I wrote an export tool and used part of it. You can find the details here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927

Excellent. Thanks for sharing.

jokoh92

EvgeniZyntx wrote: »

Here is a quick overview of your last 8 weeks, hope you don't mind the analysis, it does show that most of your calories come from carbs. You may want to try towards a higher protein/fat diet if you are finding satiety issues. Hope that helps.

Thanks. I knew I was eating way more carbs than protein/fat but I didn't know it was that much. I will try to find more things with protein/fat in it than carbs.