Help with late night snacking!

save some calories for late night food...

I'll help. Send me the cake, cookies, candy and ice cream. I will find a way to fit them in. You're welcome.

I'm with you on having late night snacking issue. And what I find interesting is that I am also an emotional eater. So, what I have found that has helped, especially when watching tv late night, is to start crocheting. By keeping my hands busy my mind doesn't run to wanting something sweet or salty.

When I started this whole process I knew I would have to confront my night time, mindless snack habit. I always read at night and I'd sit down with a book and proceed to eat an entire can of Pringles, half a bag of chocolate chips etc. It was such a habit I did'nt even realize I was doing it to the extent that I was. It was not that I was eating 'bad' foods, it was that I was eating over my calories.

So I decided to cut back on my eating window. First I stopped eating after 10pm (10pm came and I'd go brush my teeth lol). Then I moved it to 9:30, then 9pm and kept adjusting, until I was no longer eating past 7pm. Doing this really helped me learn what real hunger is vs. eating out of habit and also helped me keep on target for calories. This is something I've carried over into maintenance and while I'm more relaxed about it now, it's still a tool I use to keep me on track

I pre-log calories for my night time snacks and plan what I'm going to eat (usually popcorn, sometimes sweets or wine

I have trouble with the evening snacking, too. I'm a night owl, so my evenings are pretty much everyone else's late afternoons. I find that I haven't been craving so much unhealthy food since I haven't been eating so much of it, but it's still difficult to not eat *some*thing in the evening, so I always make sure I have some 'spare' calories left over. Honestly, I don't know why a calorie after nine pm would be any worse than a calorie before then. And I will *not* give up my nightly glass of red wine, which I always add to my MFP snacks category first thing in the morning.

I'm with you on having late night snacking issue. And what I find interesting is that I am also an emotional eater. So, what I have found that has helped, especially when watching tv late night, is to start crocheting. By keeping my hands busy my mind doesn't run to wanting something sweet or salty.

I did this! Except I do knitting instead of crocheting. I ask my friends and family what kind of knitted item they would like to have and then a few days or weeks later they have a thoughtful present as well, which makes you feel good!

To OP:
However, if the night-snacking is really hunger and not to do with any emotional or comfort motivation, then you're body wants more calories, I think. See if you can determine what it is that is motivating you to eat at night and then you'll have a better idea of possible solutions to try.

Either way, it's a good habit to break, as eating high fat/high sugar/high salt snacks at night could interfere with your quality of sleep and could also encourage you to skip breakfast.

How many calories are you having in a typical day? Based on what you wrote it looks like a lot of carbs and sugar (from fruits and juice) and little protein or healthy fat. You might want to add something more substantial earlier in the day rather than consuming "empty" calories later in the evening.

I am in the same boat, I can eat great all day, get my exercise in, then blow it all at night! Two things I do that works..no junk food in the house! It helps that I made my husband step on a scale last week so he is on board with no junk in the house! I have fruit to snack on if I really "need" a snack. But I find the time I want to snack is once the kiddo is in bed and I'm relaxing for the night, watching tv. I don't let myself "relax', every commercial break I either do 30 sit ups or 30 chair dips. Exercise tends to curve "hunger" pains. By the time I stop doing that I'm to tired to think of eating so by 9 or 10 at night I can truly relax

I have a terrible tendency to do this. I specifically leave ~500 cals available after dinner to try to offset it. And it's completely mindless - often times I'm half asleep, and it's basically just a habitual thing. It's terrible.