compulsive carb cravings

All day i can walk away from a cookie....i can eat perfectly within my diet and calories. Boom nighttime comes and i crave carbs like someone with a drug addiction. sometimes i can hold out til 830...sometimes 10 sometimes even 12....but it just gets worse as time passes and i cant help but eat. I'm at my wits end. Anyon eelse have this problem or a solution?

So eat some carbs. Plan the rest of your day to leave room for some at night.

You are fighting your biology. Your body responds to carbs (glucose) by producing insulin. The insulin then decreases the amount of glucose in your system. Next things you know, you are eating carbs again. It is a cycle. If you significantly decrease the carbs in your diet and instead eat high protein foods you will dramatically reduce your cravings. It really really works. Processed carbs are the worst. Simple carbs in fruits and vegetables are much better and healthier. Healthy fats in moderation are ok because they fill you up.

Hope this helps

I used t have that kind of craving. Ihave pretty much eliminated starches and refined sugars from my diet and those
cravings went away. It is my belief that cravings are a result of some nutrient missing from the diet. I think it is usually
the minerals or the various phytochemicals. It seems to me that a diet which includes a wide variety of vegetables and
fruits provides the best chance of getting the minerals and phytochemicals.

A tablespoon of your favorite ice cream with some nuts on it. Save up those 100 calories. So worth it.

I stumbled upon the answer, for me, anyways. I have even been getting out of bed at night for carbs! Bad, I know. This week I started drinking half a lemon squeezed into a coffee cup of hot water in the morning. I do the same around 6 at night. I can't believe I'm saying this but I just don't care about the carbs now. The lemon is supposed to level your glucose levels out, among other benefits. Google it, I am sooo happy with my new find!

I'm bumping because I'd like to see more responses too. I have this same issue. When I'm not busy (translate :moving constantly), I swear I can hear the food calling me from the cabinet...and never when it's early...and never a nice healthy piece of fruit or a vegetable! I try to move more during the day so I can still eat the cookie or half peanut butter sandwich or cupcake without negating the rest of my day's work. I try to keep all sweets and breads from the house, but my 4 year olds birthday was this week...oh, the agony of the last piece of cake screaming at me all night. I finally had two forkfulls and put the rest of the cake in the trash (I haven't stooped so low as to eat out of the trash bin yet).

This may sound kind of "outside the box" but have you tried a cup of coffee (with caffeine, yes even at night).

I only ask because for me, when I am tired (either late at night or if I haven't slept well) I crave simple carbs (like I want to stuff my face with anything from cookies to bread sticks or anything with sugar, you get the idea). If I have a cup of coffee, the cravings go away. Obviously, it depends on the person and reason for the cravings but without fail, this works for me. (I should also mention, I'm not particularly sensitive to caffeine and can pretty easily drink a carafe of coffee and still fall asleep with no problems. If you are, this would be a very bad idea).

Additionally, as mentioned, you could save up some of your calories for the evening. I do most of my eating in the late afternoon early evening so I make sure most of my calories are saved up for later in the day.

OMG, it's like we're twins!!! I have found that it is a cycle for me too. If I have a bite of processed sugars at night, I'll crave more and more! Having a piece of fruit has helped me in the past. Right now, I just tell myself no from eating any in the first place, at night. I don't crave this stuff during the day, either. I'm so good all day, and then it just hits me, like you said, I feel like a drug addict! Lol. I wish I could just understand it, and figure out what the problem is! I've heard so many opinions on this, and most of them make sense, but IDK which ones are true, or what to do to fix the problem!

cuz i stop logging after i cheat so it looks like im eating very low but really im eating plenty

Sounds like a recipe for progress.

Log everything.

Well, I'm watching my son eat extra butter n salted popcorn right now. Last week I would have had visions of stealing it from him n locking myself in the bathroom with the bowl until it was done! Seriously! I'm not having a problem with it at all now. Two words...lemon water

Very interesting thread! I'm newbie and this hit home. Sweet things and carbs are my thing too and the evenings are hard. It is lot better for me now since I do not have time to watch TV during a week and I go to bed early so the window for eating the "naughty stuff" is smaller. But I can so relate - since it's never just one cookie people. Never. I do think it is true that you do have to log either all of the foods or none. Logging just some is pointless. It is an eye opener to see how much you actually eat, but sometimes also surprising that there is actually "room" especially the days you exercise hard. you start making the connections with exercising and eating and "is this worth eating since I have to log it". It is a process. The logging helps and it keeps you accountable. But also reminds you to eat more when you used lots of calories (which can be hard for us women).

I opened my food diary

Ok. So you've only logged today - very low calories. And then a whole bunch of blank days, and then many days back, a few days again with very low calories.

You're just hungry due to undereating. So eat. Carbs, protein, fat. Whatever. Just eat.

ETA: and as usual, every other response in the thread is tossing out random advice without paying attention to the context.

cuz i stop logging after i cheat so it looks like im eating very low but really im eating plenty

Don't stop logging. Build up a few weeks of actual accurate history and then let's reassess. Besides, your idea of what cheating means might be warped.

tonight cheating=2 chocolate bars 2 bowls of cinnamon toast crunch a chocolate munchie pringles mike and ikes gushers and lemonade. definitely not warped....and the retarded thing is that after eating all this i dont even feel stuffed and sick just full :0

don't worry. just log it! it's the least you can do. make a vow to log everything (you can make your diary private again if that helps you stay accountable to yourself). you really do need to start there. and sometimes, just from the very fact that you have to log it, might make you think twice about eating it. but for starters, log everything for a while.

do it! will you do it?

All day i can walk away from a cookie....i can eat perfectly within my diet and calories. Boom nighttime comes and i crave carbs like someone with a drug addiction. sometimes i can hold out til 830...sometimes 10 sometimes even 12....but it just gets worse as time passes and i cant help but eat. I'm at my wits end. Anyon eelse have this problem or a solution?

So eat some carbs. Plan the rest of your day to leave room for some at night.

Agree with this.

Your calories are to low. You are setting yourself up for failure.