How to not kill your calories after being good all day

I leave calories for snacking. If you feel like you have to snack, go measure it all out and then munch on it.

I make sure that I eat enough protein during the day. I usually eat the most before lunch. After lunch I'll usually have a snack of almonds or beef jerky, so when I get home I'm not starving. Keep an apple on your desk, and right before work is over, eat it. it's not bad that you're snacking while you're cooking, what's bad is the choices you're making for the snacks. Last night I munched on the cauliflower and broccoli I prepared for supper, but I wasn't super hungry because I ate my face off all day.

I used to have this problem. My solution: LOTS of water and a good distraction from food (usually video games). I also happen to be far from the kitchen so I am not constantly grabbing snacks. It helps that I have small hands so that I if I do go for snacks, I can't hold very many. XD I usually just stay upstairs in my room enjoying my distraction until bed time.

Psychologically most people have less will power at the end of the day when your brain is fatigued.

Some things that work for me:

- I eat the best I can all day long. At night when I'm tired and the cravings kick in, I can look back at a great day and resist the desire to "wreck" it. If I have an indulgence earlier in the day, I am more likely to say, "Aww F it" at night.
- Workout in the evening after work. Not always the easiest time to fit it in - or the best temperature to be outside during the summer - but it burns cals and gives me less time to eat.
- Space meals further apart in the morning and closer together in the evening. I eat about every three hours. In the morning it is 3-4 hours and in the evening it is 2-3 hours. I can't tell you whether eating more at night has had a negative impact on my weight loss but I know I'm losing weight where if I was bingeing every night I wouldn't be.

So I have a bad tendency to be so hungry when I get home from work that I start picking while I'm making dinner. I did good yesterday, but then started eating some crackers, some croutons, and some olives that we were adding to our meal. I also started to fish through the cupboards and had a damn devil dog (yes bought some before Hostess went out of business) because thats when I developed a taste for em.

Mind you, I ate that after dinner, even though I knew I wasn't "allowed" anymore calories, but had the stupid mentality well you went over anyway, you already ruined it, this isn't gonna make a difference.

Ugh, now I sit today with guilt. Anybody have days like this?

A lot of people do that. Maybe the best place to start is with how you look at things. Maybe try not to look at things as "being good" and "being bad", good foods & bad foods, being naughty, being "allowed" calories etc. there's nothing wrong or bad about being hungry, or eating. Food is not bad, and neither are calories. Obviously, to lose or maintain weight, you need to be eating the right amount, but I've found it really helpful to take the judgement out of the equation. You shouldn't be spending the day wracked with guilt because you ate more food than you had intended to. Think of all the crap that goes on in the world, that people do to each other. Leave the guilt for things that actually warrant it. Looking at things in extremes can really make things more difficult. When people are either "good" or "bad", or "on a diet" or "fallen off the wagon" etc, then it's so much easier to end up really sabotaging yourself. Try to be more flexible. If you go over your goal be a couple of hundred calories, you're probably still eating at a deficit. Even if you go over your TDEE for one day, it will be balanced out by other days. Having one day where you eat more than you planned is no reason to give up for the rest of the week. (Not saying you did, but that's where it can head).

As for practical solutions - I realised at some point that I actually prefer to eat more later on in the evening. I like to have quite a big dinner, and to snack later on. So, I plan my day that way. I eat lighter earlier on in the day and save calories so that I can eat most of my intake for dinner and after dinner snacks. That might be something you could try.

Also, try to look at what's making you want to exceed your intake. You have identified that you feel hungry when you get home, so try planning a snack for that time, or before you leave work. Or, if you're determined not to eat before dinner, then try distraction techniques such as chewing gum while you're making dinner. Or cut up some raw carrots or broccoli in a set portion, and eat those. If you plan for it, you're less likely to just grab whatever's in sight.

So I have a bad tendency to be so hungry when I get home from work that I start picking while I'm making dinner. I did good yesterday, but then started eating some crackers, some croutons, and some olives that we were adding to our meal.

This used to happen to me on a daily basis, I am usually in the office my 530am so by the time I'm driving home I am famished! Since my boyfriend doesn't get home until 5 or 6 I wait to eat dinner. My solution?

--I always have my liter water bottle at work and drink lots of water in the final hours of work.
--I always have a portion controlled filling snack to munch on for the drive home in my bag like a planters granola bar or fresh fruit . Someone mentioned cucumbers - those are excellent to snack on in traffic!
--Get those damned devil dogs out of your cabinets! If you are a habitual snacker like me, you can't keep junk like that around. You will eat it,
--Always have an available healthy snack in the fridge. If I buy celery but don't chop it up right when I get home I won't eat it. Make the good food ready to eat so when you're dying for a "before dinner" the easiest thing to grab is something that won't kill your day.

:flowerforyou:

I too have the same problem and am glad you asked this question, because some of replies are GREAT!

This is my biggest battle....I will do great all day for a week straight...then one day it'll strike me....and I'll eat, then eat some more....pretty soon I have gained the 3lbs I lost the week prior. SO all of this advice is helpful to me. I go week by week. If my life is a little less chaotic one week, house is clean, kids behaving....then I don't tend to snack when I get home. When I come home to an overwhelming scene....I'll plop my butt right down and just eat. I don't want to cook around a mess or if the kids need my help I tend to do that before cooking dinner......then we are all starving. So I have made it a point to create an envirnment that will help me in this battle. With my job, I am off at 2:45....and I tend to want to snack then. So I have allotted my workout time to be in the afternoons.....keeps me away from the food. Then when I get home I am hungry....my sister told me to eat egg whites.....so I will make a few egg whites (low in calories and high in protien) WORKS WONDERS!