Snacks for the evening

This is such a handy thread - there are about 200 awesome snack suggestions in here!

I'd like to bump this discussion in a completely different direction for one moment.... And if someone else already said this forgive me, there are four pages to this thread and I just couldn't read it all!

For those folks who have difficulty with controlling themselves after dinner, I have good news for you!! And that is: There is NOTHING wrong with you and you should feel absolutely fine about eating that time of day! This just so happens to be the time of day you specifically crave most of your calories and there's NOTHING wrong with that.

The trick? Is to learn to work WITH it, not to simply try to hang on by your fingernails.

My advice: stop fighting yourself and instead come up with a plan and strategy to leave yourself lots of good calories for that time of day, then eat eat eat w/out guilt!

There are many ways to do this: eating less calories earlier in the day is the most obvious strategy, but how does one do that and not starve? Well, you'll have to be very deliberate in your food choices - picking meals and snacks that are filling and satiating but lower in cals. Things high in fiber, protein, calcium, and most importantly, volume. Maybe eat a lighter dinner. Then decide how many calories you can eat a night, have your arsenal of healthy but tasty after-dinner snacks ready in your fridge/pantry, and have at it.

Problem: solved.

Ok but my wife says Dr. Oz recommends the bulk of the calories be eaten before 3-4pm when the metabolism is still cranking away. So I'm not sure...I mean he is a doctor (tv)...lol

Meal timing is a myth. Just plan an evening snack and stay within your calories. That strategy has been working for me.

I agree w/beatlegirl.

No disrespect to Doc Oz, but you gotta do what's going to keep you SANE.

And keep in mind - I'm not saying you should eat 1,000 calories right before bed! LOL Nor am I saying you don't need to fuel that fire at relatively spaced-out intervals during the day. I think the point is that we all need to figure out what times of day are most difficult for us, when we most want those calories, then work *with* that timing.

For example, I eat a 200-225 calorie smoothie around 8:30-9am - I keep it very light. Then between 11am and about 3pm I tend to get crazy-craving-ravenous hungry - not because I didn't eat enough earlier, it is literally just the time of day I get a little nuts. So I plan about a 250-300 cal meal for 11am (or a little earlier, depending how I'm feeling) and then about a 500-600 meal around 2pm. Do people at work ask me every fricking day "oh, eating a late lunch are you"? Yeah, they do, and I tell them everyday - "nope, this is just the time I eat, like I do every day". It's so out of the norm people can't handle it. But I do it because that's what works for ME. Interestingly, I don't get hungry again until about 7:30pm. Whereas, in the morning/early afternoon I can't make it from 8am to 2pm without 3 meals, I can go almost the same amount of time again in the late afternoon/evening without anything (except, literally, maybe a couple tsp of peanut butter to tide me over). It's just my way. After my 7:30-8pm meal (which is usually about 500-600 cals), I'm pretty much done for the day. I might have about 100-150 cals of snackies before bed but that's it.

People who know me well think I'm nuts because they have been trained to think you eat breakfast early in the morning, lunch at noon, dinner at 6pm, and a little snack before bed. I don't know where that mentality came from, but I say that we should go ahead and bust that stereotype and do whatever it takes to help ourselves succeed. Your metabolism will take care of itself.