After dinner eater

hotgirl155

Hi,
Trying to lose 15 pounds. My downfall ... after dinner snacking. As I put that 5th cookie in my mouth I tell
My self don’t yet I still reach for the 6th!

Trying to find a strategy that works. I am 57 yrs old I work out with a personal trainer 3x a week . In fact I feel very fit, good muscle tone .

I wish I could just lock myself away after dinner but this is real life. Chores must get done and there are other people in the house who enjoy those snacks which I should not have .

Looking for help. All the posts I’ve read are inspiring.

neugebauer52

If I feel hungry (or peckish) later in the evening I usually haven't eaten enough protein during dinner time. In that case I'll have a slice of cheese, a few spoons of yoghurt or cottage cheese or a boiled egg. Works for me. And I just don't keep cookies and all other items which I know are my "trigger foods" at home. Voila!

serindipte

I save calories for an evening snack. If I'm having cookies, I take two or three inn a napkin and put the rest away so I'm not reaching for another.

nighthawk584

if it is a problem, always save calories for it. if you can't control binging on them, don't have them in the house until you have better control.

I always save around 200-300 calories for snacks after dinner.

MikePTY

Are you eating enough the rest of the day? Undereating during the day can lead to binging at night.

Chris_J99

What I need is someone to follow me around in the evening and slap any food out of my hands...

lemurcat2

If you feel like you enjoy evening snacking or can't avoid it, save calories for it and include foods less calorie dense than cookies (for example, reach for fruit or raw veg or a measured amount of air popped popcorn or whatever).

If there are specific treats that you just have no current control over, talk to your family about switching them out temporarily for ones less tempting for you.

Also, change up habits in other ways to try to stop the current pattern -- maybe prioritize tasks that use your hands and make snacking harder or drink a cup of herbal tea to use your hands, stuff like that.

If you want to stop snacking, make that a priority -- part of which will be using up cals before (so you aren't undereating) and then maybe doing something to signal the end of eating (brushing teeth) or having a hard stop so you can tell yourself "I don't eat after X time" (or I don't eat after dinner, or I don't eat other than my one single snack), "but I will have that with lunch tomorrow!"

CrescentEddy

I’m looking at evening snacking in my own life too. And these are some ideas that I’m going to implement:

1. Take this as something to learn about, without judgement.
2. Observe if my evening snacking is linked to activities I associate with snacking, such as watching TV. Then maybe I can change the equation. Instead of TV = snacking... maybe it could be TV = stretching... or TV = herbal tea, for example.
3. Change my language. So instead of evening SNACKS, what if it was evening FOOD. So instead of eating snack food ‘junk food’ (chips, candy)... I would just eat wholesome food. For example, a quick egg sandwich is sometimes the same amount of calories as a tiny amount of chips.
4. Have my snacks be combination foods - a combination of carbs, fibre, protein, fat and a healthy beverage. MFP often says to do this because it is more satisfying and filling.
5. Spend time in the evening doing things that are satisfying in other ways, such as fixing up something in your home, or doing a hobby you enjoy, or calling your grandmother for a chat. Do things that are nourishing to the soul.

These are some ideas that I’m going to use. Hope it’s helpful to others!

p.s. I’m looking for MFP friends... please friend me!

sarabushby

You could try eating you’d dinner later?
Or brushing your teeth before bed early so that you have the taste of peppermint in your mouth which makes you crave stuff less plus the hassle of then having to brush your teeth again if you do indulge.
Along similar lines, a peppermint tea may help?
Personally I VERY rarely snack after dinner as I train in the evening after work so by the time I shower & eat it’s around 8.30pm so not long and I’m falling asleep on the sofa then take myself off to bed.
It’s probably a habit thing - could you keep your hands busy by taking up a hobbie so that you’re not reaching for the snacks?

deannalfisher

I plan a bowl of cereal into my calories right before bed every night - first thing that goes into my diary each day

Katmary71

I've been eating dinner later then having air popped popcorn with coconut aminos, smoked paprika, and garlic powder. Then I brush my teeth and make a huge mug of herbal tea, it's my 'wind down' routine.

girlwithcurls2

I try to save calories for it, and then snack on something like Smartfood light popcorn. I get it. After dinner snacking is a tricky habit.

kimny72

1. Make sure you aren't undereating. You might be losing control because you are trying to lose too fast and your body is legit hungry.
2. Log a Quick Add of whatever a reasonable calorie snack would be first thing in the morning so you have the best chance of saving those cals.
3. When it's time for your snack, weigh out your portion, remove the quick add and log your food, put the package away, walk somewhere else and eat.
4. If you don't manage to save cals and aren't really hungry, I find a diet soda, or a cup of flavored tea with a square of dark chocolate sometimes satisfies.
5. If the snacking urge is forcing you up to your maintenance calories or even over, take a look at your macros. If you are typically below goal on protein, fat, or fiber, bringing any stragglers up to goal might help control your appetite.
6. Keep busy, boredom eating is a thing.
7. If you think you would do better as an abstainer, focus on a realistic deficit and your macros, then try closing the kitchen after dinner and keeping yourself busy. This really works for some people and really does not work for other people!

88olds

Ditto @kimny72.

And I find cookies a special problem. I budget for a treat/snack every day, about 7% of my total. But I’ve found I get the most bang for the calories with something frozen. If it’s diet modified ice cream or frozen yogurt, I’ve likely tried it.

I can scarf down 100s of calories in cookies in a flash. And it just leaves me wanting more. I don’t keep them in the house.

AnnPT77

A few thoughts, including some long shots (but I'm not the only person here I've seen saying that they helped):

1. Consider experimenting with your all-day eating patterns to see if there are changes that might reduce evening cravings. It could be anything: Bizarrely, one of the things that most helped me with evening cravings was to get a solid breakfast with plenty of protein, then spread more protein through the day.

2. For me, my cravings for calorie-dense but nutrient-sparse sweets were reduced after I made it a point, for a few weeks, to eat several servings of fruit every day. I started with 3 servings, and eventually could reduce that. After a while, some of the simple just-sweet former treat foods (candy, cookies) started seeming too simple and just sweet, not very appealing. (I still enjoy a good rich dessert now and then, though. ).

3. Cravings can be a response to fatigue, thus be more likely to arise late in the day as we get more energetically depleted. How's your sleep? How's your stress level? Is your exercise intensity being managed (i.e., not shooting for high intensity day in/day out, too little recovery, etc.)?

4. If the problem isn't actually some variant of hunger, the answer isn't food. If the issue is habits, it's usually easier to replace an undesired habit with a new, better one, rather than trying to "just stop". If the issue is boredom, the answer is probably a good distraction. There are various non-food solutions to these, but IMO some particularly good ones are new or revived hobbies, especially ones that require clean hands (needlework, sketching, playing a musical instrument, etc.) or create dirty hands (painting, gardening, carpentry, etc.).

Best wishes!

dmkoenig

Nutritionfacts.org has a number of short videos summarizing a variety of studies that show that your body processes calories differently eating in the later evening than in the morning and daytime. Food for thought...

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/eat-more-calories-in-the-morning-to-lose-weight/

Buttermello

I dont eat before 2pm so that I have calories left for after dinner.

gothchiq

I get hungry in the evening too. It's a matter of what you select and how much. I can have a great big salad with low cal dressing around 8 pm and not ruin anything (I save like 100-200 cals for the end of the day because I know this is a thing for me.) Or if I don't have time to chop up vegetables, I weigh out one ounce of cheese for the snack and have a cup of herbal tea along with it. There are some delicious and low cal salad dressings out there on the web. You could also have a portion of hummus with raw vegetables. I swear the cookies and stuff just increase appetite and before you know it things have gone pear shaped. If it is truly hunger then the vegetables won't seem undesirable. If it is not truly hunger maybe a cup of tea will satisfy the desire to consume/taste something.

Onedaywriter

I have similar issues so this is what worked for me. I am definitely a relaxation- tv or reading eater. I mentally seem to tie relaxation with reward and food. I did a couple of things that worked for me but I do still fight it.
- stop go-to snacks for a long time. For me it was chips (normally half or all of a full bag), followed by cookies and milk. I ate junk that wasn’t these for a while. Still junk though.
- i next began to sub chocolate milk in place of the total junk. Still junk-ish but a cup of 1or 2% milk has less than 200 calories and still provides sweet. Find something that can work for you. And budget the calories for it so no guilt.
- An 8 oz bag of chips has 1260 calories. I went on a rower and tried to row 1260 calories. I got to about 200 calories and gave up. But I realized that even if I just cut my portion significantly I’d still have to bust it for like a half hour just to work off a two ounce serving.

It still haunts me some nights. On those nights I’m really “bad” I now have a cliff’s builder bar with one cup of low-fat milk. Seems to hold me and total is 400 cals. I leave about 250 for a snack so not too bad.

fatoldladyonamission

I’m the same so I save calories for the evening and then work on picking the most healthy food I can get for the calories I have saved. If that doesn’t work I’ll go paint my nails or have a bath and then go straight to bed. If I get stuck into eating anything I shouldn’t I know I’ll hate myself for it the next day so I’ll do anything to avoid overeating! That said I’m not always successful and sometimes you just have to log it and move on. Just find something that keeps you busy until the craving passes.