Can't seem to stop eating

There's no magic answer. You, and you alone, control what you put in your mouth. You must develop the self control to resist eating more. Use distraction, remove high calorie foods from your house, keep healthier snacks available, make a list of all the reasons why you want this and hang it on the frig to remind you very time you go to open it.

As for motivation, we can give you all kinds of suggestions but motivation must come from within. Losing weight is hard, and unless you are ready to dedicate yourself to making this lifestyle change, then it won't happen. If you aren't ready yet, that's ok. It took me 25 yrs to get to the point that maintaining the status quo was more uncomfortable than making the changes needed to get healthy.

You can try snacking of veggies and lean meats throughout the day to get in your micros and protein, and then use the rest of your calories to satisfy your cravings at the end of the night.

A few questions to ask yourself when you feel hunger/cravings at night:

- Am I really hungry—in need of food because my stomach is empty and growling—or do I just have a craving because food brings pleasure?

- If I'm just having a craving, can I ignore it until it goes away? (Drinking a glass of water often helps at this point.)

- If I can't ignore the craving, will a low-calorie, bulky food satisfy it—a pickle, some raw broccoli, etc.?

- If a low-calorie food won't suffice, how little of something else will I need to feel satisfied? If I crave ice cream, will one soup spoon be enough? (I owe this last question to Dr. Yoni Freedhoff's recent book The Diet Fix, which is well worth reading.

The way to deal with this issue in the long run is to learn to distinguish real hunger from cravings, and learn to ignore cravings. It's easier to ignore them if you find something to distract yourself from them. Cravings and boredom go hand in hand. I find that pursuing my hobbies in the evening, instead of vegging out in front of the TV, is a great way to cut down on cravings for food I don't need.

You may need to find other ways to eat. if you are a grazer and have no set time to eat meals and snacks try eating your meals and snack only at certain times. If you eat at certain times you may need to be a grazer. Either way make sure you get you proper calorie intake and that you try to eat good for you foods.
Other ways to get rid of hunger that may be false signals is: drink water or a cup of tea, brush your teeth, chew a piece of gum, do 10 crunches or 20 jumping jacks, if it is at night and not too early just go to bed.

HI Hannah,

I know how you feel. I had the same problem. At the end of the night, I would suddenly just want to eat ridiculous amounts of food. For me it was chips, pretzels, peanuts, anything salty. Once I started, I was in a groove and literally could not stop.
First, I started tracking everything, and I mean everything. After a particularly massive amount of peanuts one night while watching TV, I actually went through the empty shells and attempted to count how many I ate. When I tracked it, it was over 1500 calories! And that was after eating regular meals all day. And I didn't even feel overly full! I now know that I simply can't have them in the house. Once the easy "bad" options are removed, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to resist them. I'm not going to drive to the store at 11pm just to eat crap. Now, I've finally trained myself to be more in control. But I still try to not keep lots of those foods in the house as a rule. You can do it, but you really have to want it more than the food (as was mentioned earlier). It took me more than a few years to actually realize this. Good luck.

agree that it's best to keep trigger foods out of the house.

and find an obsession. whenever you want to munch, come here and read threads. or if you're into fitness, look up fitness reviews - go crazy, let it replace the food thing. into photography? same thing - just find something that really interests you and spend time reading about it, researching it, looking up stats.

btw, i save a couple hundred calories per day so i can have something tasty before bed. in fact i just finished a bowl of cereal

I agree with most of the advice so far:
drink lots of water
log everything, no matter how embarassing
learn to distinguish hunger from boredom (just managed this myself recently)
eat what you like, but in moderation; having forbidden foods only makes you want them more
that being said, don't buy the trigger foods, or if you do buy just a little bit (until you get it under control)

Set realistic goals.
Use a BMI chart to find a healthy goal weight. For starters, aim for the highest number in the healthy range.
Losing 1-2 lb per week is realistic and healthy. That means dropping 500-1000 cal per day.
Eating 10x your goal weight for calories is realistic and healthy. (My goal weight is 165, so I'm aiming for no more than 1650 cal per day.)
Here's a blog post I did about setting goals:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/setting-goals-667045


Eat a large breakfast (about half your calories), medium lunch, and small dinner. Several studies have shown that pattern to be linked with greater weight loss than the usual American pattern which is the reverse. Here's a post I did which discusses several weight loss studies (with links to them so you can read the evidence yourself):
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/2014-06-10-some-studies-about-weight-loss-667818

If you can, exercise before breakfast, because you'll start burning fat faster. You've been running all night on the glycogen, so there's less of it available, and your body will have to pull from the fat stores more.

And you might want to consider a month of two of an appetite suppressant so your body can reset the hunger mechanism and you can learn to eat healthy foods in reasonable portions.
This was a godsend for me. I used to be constantly hungry, now I only get a bit hungry if I don't eat, which is how it should be.
Use all the tools at your disposal to help you succeed.
(You still have to eat fewer calories than you burn, and you have to do the exercise yourself, but removing the constant hunger is a huge help.)
Here's a blog post I did about prescription weight-loss meds:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/prescription-weight-loss-drugs-679877

It's more important to find out what you are eating, rather than how much at this point.
Take it one step at a time and make better choice with what you eat rather than trying to stop.
If you concentrate on you protein foods, your good veggies and your fruits, rather than the original bad foods
Then within time, you may just find your body taking the next step for you.

You sir are the only person on MFP that I've seen has said that and I LOVE YOU!!! this is what my health coach keeps telling me, but on here counting calories is the only way it is "the word" whatever you want to call it.

Thank you for your kind words Farmers daughter.
That's the nicest thing I've heard from MFP members.
I love you too.
Weight loss is only 10 % of health and fitness
There is much more to health than the numbers on a scale.

What, to please you? Yeah right. I am not leaving so you may as well block me now. Many many people love food and choose to preserve their quality of life by not struggling to be thin. They need to acknowledge to themselves that this was their choice, not failure on their part.They need not sully their enjoyment of food by unnecessary feelings of guilt or failure.

A lot of people hate food and decide to starve themselves to the point of skeleton.
What's your advice to them. Die you Badterd!?
Your attitude stinks