Help, I ALWAYS end up overeating past 5pm.

exordiuminseoul

I end up over eating and not logging things later in the day. Before 5pm I log everything easily and eat healthy meals but after midday Idk what happens and ruin my "diet". I will sabotage myself eat junkfood and stop caring. This has been happening for 2 months, what should I do? Any one else go through a similar situation?

bbell1985

Is it because you like to eat at night? I stretch out my daytime meals because I love eating at night. I won't eat dinner until 7:30, dessert at 9:30, then I go to sleep. Maybe you'd like something like this.

PaulaWallaDingDong

Have you planned out some reasonable amounts of "junk food" to enjoy after 5? If not, it's something to try. If so, stop keeping it in the house.

vivelajackie

I don't keep junk around typically. I'm lucky in that I work until 6 and don't get dinner before 7, leaving me with less snacking time. I've trained myself to drink water when I've been tempted to snack in the past simply because hunger and thirst feel very similar. Keep yourself occupied with things that aren't food. Log out your day beforehand​ so you know where you shouldn't be straying. Vary the foods you're taking in to keep things from getting boring.

... There's plenty of ways to not gorge yourself with snacks but you gotta want to stick to it.

Purplebunnysarah

I eat a second lunch around 3 PM and then work out around 5 with dinner around 6:30. I find my appetite is a bit suppressed After working out. Supper used to be my heaviest meal of the day but not anymore!

RedheadedPrincess14

Well what type of food do you eat in the day and how much?

JeromeBarry1

It's ok to eat after 5 p.m., but not ok to neglect logging accurately. Log accurately, and make your diary public. Perhaps even rename your meals according to time of day, and accurately place your food items in the time of day you ate them. I suspect you'll reveal that your idea of healthy meals are tiny and nutritionally unbalanced in the morning and midday.

rosebarnalice

I had a similar problem, so I started making myself log BEFORE I ate anything after 3 pm.

I could successfully log after breakfast and lunch, but late afternoon​ and through the evening became a stumbling block for me.

To ease into it, I challenged myself to log what I was getting ready to eat before I ate it after 3:00 for just one week.

Interestingly, during that week, I found several trigger behaviors and rationalizing thought patterns that I then worked on in subsequent weeks to address.

After that week, it became easier for me to log in the afternoons and evenings because I was using logging as a way to monitor my progress on those triggers and thought patterns.

veganj1

I was going through this until very recently, it seems to me to be 90% will power. If I'm really starving I'll have a banana, apple, or some kind of low carb/sugar snack (staying below 100 calories)

I wish there was some magic answer but unfortunately there isn't.

amtyrell

When I am done eating for the day even if not going to bed for a few hours I brush my teeth and use mouthwash. I am not sure why this works but it is a bit of you are done eating signal that helps me not eat late at night. It is an easy thing to try.

nowine4me

Are you watching tv and bored, lonely? Instead, Try having a late afternoon snack (same time every day, then going for a nice long walk. Eat supper, clean up the kitchen, maybe have some fruit for dessert, brush your teeth and go to bed. At like 9. Get up early the next morning and go for another walk/run/lift before breakfast. It sounds like you have the middle part of the day under control.

Orphia

Stop classifying things you love as "junk" or "healthy".

Stay away from trans fats if you can, and obey a dietician's orders if you have a medical condition, but for weight loss and better future health, just eat what satisfies you within your calorie limit.

I lost all my weight in 12 months and have kept it off for over a year by eating what satisifies me within my calorie limit.

That meant/means leaving two thirds of my calories for dinner, alcohol and dessert after 5 pm.

cityruss

Take responsibility for your own actions and stop overeating.

Machka9

I eat the bulk of my calories after 5 pm.

Maybe you need to adjust your day.

SarahFromWalthamForest

I eat a lot in the evening, I adjusted my eating times to allow for it.

I usually have black coffee for breakfast in the morning.
I have my lunch sometime between 4pm-6pm and my dinner and snacks later in the evening when I'm hungry and relaxing.

Dragonsurfergirl

Some great tips. I like the brushing your teeth. I think I'll also go back to having diet jelly in cups in the fridge and also chewing gum on hand.

livingleanlivingclean

bbell1985 wrote: »

Is it because you like to eat at night? I stretch out my daytime meals because I love eating at night. I won't eat dinner until 7:30, dessert at 9:30, then I go to sleep. Maybe you'd like something like this.

I do this too. I train at night, so that makes my dinner naturally later (730/8) and I always plan dessert. Most of my calories are consumed in dinner and dessert

NoIdea103

I have a habit of wanting to eat more in the evenings; I have quite a busy job so don't really have time to focus so much on food, but in the evenings when I finally get to relax I like to enjoy food as a part of that. Like others have said I make sure I keep my calories lower throughout the day so I have a decent amount left for the evening, and I also pre-plan everything (sometimes a week in advance). It's really helped

armchairherpetologist

I like big dinners so I save my calories for then. If you know you like to eat more in the evening, there's nothing wrong with planning for that to be when you eat most of your food.

elcorrigan89

I kid you not, since I started eating more in smaller meals throughout the day, the binging after 5 has stopped! I also learned from a metabolic test that i burn calories 33% faster then what fitness apps calculations suggested. I went from a 1800 calories limit to 2000 and now I'm still losing weight and less hungry at night!

beerfoamy

Same here.
I ate less during the day when I first joined MFP. It has balanced out a bit, but if I know I am not doing anything on an evening, I will reduce breakfast and lunch to allow for the 5-7pm hunt for food! (try and have actual tea around half 7 to reduce the snacking time after)
If I can get home and stay moving, i.e. wash up, clean, sort food prep for next day it helps too

ladyreva78

My problem is the time between getting home and having dinner. Once I've had dinner, I'm quite content with my cup of tea for the rest of the evening. But until then, I'll hunt through every nook and cranny in the kitchen for something edible. Part of it is hunger, part of it is simply habit.

I've sadly developed the habit: get in through the front door -> go to kitchen and grab something to eat. It doesn't matter if it's 3pm with another 3 hours to go till dinner or 7 pm and dinner will be on the table in 15-20 minutes. I still reach for something to munch on. The worst part is my train of thought: "I'll be eating in 15 minutes; this doesn't even taste good; dinner is that super yummy leftover from yesterday; why am I eating this?" I know what I am doing and that it's stupid. That realization alone hasn't helped me break that cycle yet. Not giving up though.

So, carrot sticks have become my friend. I prep a 1kg bag of carrots into sticks every Sunday afternoon. So when I come home, I can grab a couple of those to munch on. It seems to satisfy both the hunger (when present) and the habit until I have dinner sorted on the table.

Figuring out why I was overeating when I get home after work has helped me find tricks, if not to prevent it, at least to limit the damage. I suspect that given time, I'll either figure out how to break the habit completely or learn to accept it and just continue to deal with it.

kellysmith410

This is why I eat constantly throughout the day. I find that if I don't eat much during the day, i'm STARVING by the time I get home from work and want to binge. I will still save calories because I do like to eat bigger meals in the evening, but I will snack on things every 2 hours or so to keep myself from feeling those hunger pangs when I'm about to get home.

Also I think it might be worth it to identify why you're mindlessly overeating and not logging.
For me it was that I had too much free time.
I now fill my evenings with gym time, or if it's a rest day I will run errands and do some housework to keep myself busy.
If I sit on the couch to relax, the mindless eating will happen.
It also took some time with a counselor to work through my unhealthy eating habits.

Good luck!

armchairherpetologist

ladyreva78 wrote: »

My problem is the time between getting home and having dinner. Once I've had dinner, I'm quite content with my cup of tea for the rest of the evening. But until then, I'll hunt through every nook and cranny in the kitchen for something edible. Part of it is hunger, part of it is simply habit.

I've sadly developed the habit: get in through the front door -> go to kitchen and grab something to eat. It doesn't matter if it's 3pm with another 3 hours to go till dinner or 7 pm and dinner will be on the table in 15-20 minutes. I still reach for something to munch on. The worst part is my train of thought: "I'll be eating in 15 minutes; this doesn't even taste good; dinner is that super yummy leftover from yesterday; why am I eating this?" I know what I am doing and that it's stupid. That realization alone hasn't helped me break that cycle yet. Not giving up though.

So, carrot sticks have become my friend. I prep a 1kg bag of carrots into sticks every Sunday afternoon. So when I come home, I can grab a couple of those to munch on. It seems to satisfy both the hunger (when present) and the habit until I have dinner sorted on the table.

Figuring out why I was overeating when I get home after work has helped me find tricks, if not to prevent it, at least to limit the damage. I suspect that given time, I'll either figure out how to break the habit completely or learn to accept it and just continue to deal with it.

Could you eat dinner earlier as an alternative?

lmew91

I can relate. Since I have entered maintenance, I've noticed that I still want to be really careful with how many calories I consume during the day (while at work.) So I space it out, and I'm not hungry really during the day, but my stomach starts to growl as I'm driving home.

By the time I get home, I'm prowling the kitchen and snacking on whatever I can grab. This usually results in something like Cheez- Its, and I scarf down a few handfuls, which then leads to the mindset of "oh well, too late, can't weigh them now, might as well not even try to estimate." Sometimes after this, I still eat the dinner I had planned, and the damage probably isn't too bad. Other times though, one little un-logged snack can easily lead to three before I've even had dinner.

For me, I've just had to accept the idea of eating more during the day, because I have more calories to eat since I'm now in maintenance, and I am also exercising more. Having snacks on hand that fit within my goals helps too, and the act of slowing down and weighing my snacks out before eating them helps me stop and think about what I want, is it worth it, and how much should I have?

stanmann571

lmew91 wrote: »

I can relate. Since I have entered maintenance, I've noticed that I still want to be really careful with how many calories I consume during the day (while at work.) So I space it out, and I'm not hungry really during the day, but my stomach starts to growl as I'm driving home.

By the time I get home, I'm prowling the kitchen and snacking on whatever I can grab. This usually results in something like Cheez- Its, and I scarf down a few handfuls, which then leads to the mindset of "oh well, too late, can't weigh them now, might as well not even try to estimate." Sometimes after this, I still eat the dinner I had planned, and the damage probably isn't too bad. Other times though, one little un-logged snack can easily lead to three before I've even had dinner.

For me, I've just had to accept the idea of eating more during the day, because I have more calories to eat since I'm now in maintenance, and I am also exercising more. Having snacks on hand that fit within my goals helps too, and the act of slowing down and weighing my snacks out before eating them helps me stop and think about what I want, is it worth it, and how much should I have?

For me... what seems to be working is single serve packs. I know that I'm going to want to crunch something while dinner is prepping, so I've got single serve packs of fruit snacks and goldfish(I know not super healthy) to munch if I'm feeling cravy or peckish

Jthanmyfitnesspal

Eat dinner later and skip breakfast.

lgill1127

I like logging my whole day of meals first thing in the morning to see if I have any flex calories leftover for dessert.

Other ideas:
-log all of your overeating snacks. Sometimes seeing the numbers and going over goal is enough to curb the habit.
-not buying snacky foods that you're prone to overeating. I have a moratorium on keeping chips, pretzels, blocks of cheese, and frozen snacks in my house. The candy is hidden out of view so I only eat it when I know I have the cals to spare.
-perhaps you're not eating enough food for breakfast/lunch/snacks before dinner?

For me personally it helps to have 250-350 cal meals with a few snacks throughout the day. I'll typically have a mini Larabar in the morning around 10:30-11 am, a string cheese and carrots around 2:30-3:30pm , and either a laughing cow cheese wedge + 7 small crackers before I workout around 5:30pm or an 8oz glass of plant-based chocolate milk after I workout around 6:30pm before dinner at 7:30-8:30pm.

bvff35

exordiuminseoul wrote: »

I end up over eating and not logging things later in the day. Before 5pm I log everything easily and eat healthy meals but after midday Idk what happens and ruin my "diet". I will sabotage myself eat junkfood and stop caring. This has been happening for 2 months, what should I do? Any one else go through a similar situation?

Oh my you sound just like me! Night time is the worst! I think some of it is from changing hormone levels as the evening progresses and being more tired. I have noticed that I am continually more hungry when I don't get enough sleep. I have to really force myself to not over-eat at night and I eat less throughout the day just to help offset this a little so that I can rat more in the evenings.

Ironandwine69

Go to bed at 5.01.
Problem solved.